


Trapped in a Game

by Kousakacomplex



Series: Trapped in a Game [1]
Category: Original Work, Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Dungeons & Dragons References, Erotica, F/M, Fantasy, Harems, Incest, Inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, Inspired by Sword Art Online, Original Character(s), Role-Playing Game, Science Fiction, Sibling Incest, Sibling Love, Trapped, Video & Computer Games, Video Game Mechanics, Virtual Reality, gamer - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:35:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 65,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28755984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kousakacomplex/pseuds/Kousakacomplex
Summary: Simblings, Joshua and Kelly Hegel get trapped in a virtual reality video game, where death in-game can result in death in real life.
Series: Trapped in a Game [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2108226
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Siblings get trapped in a virtual reality video game.

***

“Tada!”

“What is that?”

“Am I holding the box upside down or something?”

“No, it just looks like you bought a VR game without the VR hardware.”

“I bought the headgear too idiot!”

“No way.”

“I did!”

“Why?”

Kelly screwed her face up at me, then kicked me in the shins.

“Ow- hey!”

“That’s for being a jackass!”

I rubbed my shins gingerly before returning my attention to my little sister.

At five foot-four, Kelly stood about a head shorter than me, but when she put her hands on her hips and glared at me with those ferocious brown eyes, she cut quite the intimidating figure.

She might kill me if I said it out loud, but she was adorable when she was angry like that.

“I- wasn’t trying to be. Kel, this stuff is just- expensive.”

“So what?”

“You’re supposed to be saving money for college.”

My little sister Kelly was barely nineteen.

She’d taken a year off after high school to work before going to college, and certainly shouldn’t be spending money on silly things like VR headgear.

“Come on, Josh. I don’t _have_ to go to college right now, you know.”

“Yes. You do.”

“Why?”

“Because- I said so, mom and dad say so. It’s for your own good Kel.”

She furrowed her brow angrily at me again.

“Kelly, please. Listen to me-”

“No. You listen to me! You’re not doing anything that’s for your own good so why do you care so much about mine?”

She tapped her foot impatiently.

I sighed.

The obvious answer was that it was too late for me. That my own good didn’t matter.

But it’d be a completely new issue if I let something like that slip out.

Kelly was my baby sister.

I wanted the whole world for her.

If she went to college right now I’d pay for the whole thing no questions asked.

Hell, if she wanted to goof off and just do nothing I’d pay for that too.

But I might not always be around to look after her like that, and I’d rest a lot better knowing that she had a degree to fall back on rather than nothing at all.

Kelly was a smart girl.

Even now she was paying for her own apartment and living expenses without letting mom and dad help her with a thing.

But there was no telling what might happen in the future, so I just wanted what was best for her.

I took one more look at her before I relented:

“Okay- I’m listening.”

She perked up at this, holding the box up in front of me excitedly.

“We used to play games like this all the time when we were kids. Come on! It’ll be just like old times.”

“The games we played weren’t cutting edge ground breaking technology, Kel. If you wanna play something I’m sure there’s a game I could find that wouldn’t cost you a fortune.”

“Oh come on, don’t go for some boring crap. This is new! Exciting? See!” She held the box close to her face with an exaggerated smile, trying her best to sell me on the idea.

“Why do you wanna play this so bad?”

“Because- the beta has amazing reviews, it’s literally the best thing out there game-wise right now. Besides…” she sighed, getting a little fidgety.

“Besides..?”

“I know you really wanna play it.”

“What?”

“You’ve been reading up on it non-stop.”

“How do you even know that?”

She held up her phone.

“When you gave me your old phone, your google account was still synced. Whenever you sign in anywhere, your browsing history syncs to my phone,” she rubbed her feet nervously as she added that.

“Ugh. What the hell, Kelly? Why didn’t you remove my account?”

In the modern world, there was no more intimate a link to person’s thoughts than to have access to their browsing history.

“Because- when you’re ignoring me it’s the only connection I still have to you.”

I ran my hands through my hair and paced, agitatedly.

“Come on, Josh- It’s not like if I was spying on your freaky porn preferences or anything. Come to think of it you barely watched porn. Kinda weird for a guy,” she teased, with a playful wink.

 _It’s a good thing I always use incognito mode_ , I thought.

Let that be a lesson to guys out there.

Even if you live alone, you can never be too careful!

I paced a little more, before I continued:

“Okay, so I’ve been reading up on it. But it was just for fun.”

“A hundred and sixty pages yesterday alone Josh?”

“Uh- I like to read- game stuff. You know? Besides, I hardly play games anymore Kel.”

“Yeah… Well now you can!”

I slumped down onto my sofa, with a sigh.

She wasn’t going to budge on this.

“Fine- I’ll buy the game from you, and whatever else you had to spend on it.”

“No.”

“What- why?”

“Because this is what _I_ want, numb nuts. Look, college isn’t going anywhere. I’m young, I’m smart, and work has been good to me. I want to do this with you.”

“With me?”

“Yeah. This one’s yours- but I bought one for me too.”

“No. No, no. No!”

“What? It was cheaper this way.”

“Kelly, how much did you spend?”

“Look relax, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I want to play with you, okay?”

“Why does this mean so much to you?”

“Just- because, okay?” She plopped down on the single sofa where I sat, across my lap, and nestled herself against my chest, the way she’d been doing since we were kids.

She was warm, and her presence was comforting.

“We don’t spend time together anymore Josh. Not since- well, you know.”

 _My failed marriage?_ I thought with a sigh.

Being twenty-three and divorced had to be some kind of record, but sadly not the kind anyone really wants.

“I want us to do this together. For old times’ sake?” she looked up into my face with those watery eyes that looked just on the verge of tears, and I pulled her in for a hug.

_It’s not like I can tell you no anyway…_

“Okay- but please let me pay for half, at least?”

She shook her head.

“Why?”

“This is my gift to you, Josh. Just accept it and deal with it, okay?”

I sighed, and she smiled happily before hugging me again.

She placed a little kiss on my cheek before getting off of me.

* * *

Three days later, the VR headset arrived at my doorstep with a huge booklet that I initially assumed was the instructions manual.

Instead it turned out to be a long list of release forms and medicals that I needed to fill out and return before the game’s official release date.

I knew a VR game was a big step for the gaming world to make, but this seemed a bit over the top.

It wasn’t until I got around to reading the materials that I realized the reason for all of the fuss.

This wasn’t just VR.

This was simulated reality.

And to think, I’d been reading about the gameplay mechanics, class features, and background dynamics while overlooking that very important detail.

The ‘thought interface’ system which I’d been reading about wasn’t just some fancy terminology for the game’s interface.

Thoughts were actually going to be used as input mechanisms to perform actions and interact with the virtual game world.

This technology didn’t really exist, did it?

I picked up my cell phone and quickly called Kelly.

“Kel?”

“Hey! Did your VR headset come in already?”

“Yeah- that and all the release forms. Did you know about all this?”

“Yeah yeah, just a bunch of medicals. Just pretend you’re an astronaut preparing for some outer space mission or something.”

“For a game, Kelly? Seriously- did you read all of this?”

“Yup- did my medicals and everything.”

“How can you be so casual about this?”

“What? If you need help getting your medicals done I’ll come with.”

“Have you read the release forms? Possible brain damage. Memory loss. Loss of motor functions. Partial spinal paralysis?”

“Blah blah, yada yada. Those things don’t ever really happen. It’s like all of those side effects on pills you take all the time.”

“Like when I got that rash from taking pain killers?”

“Yeah! Oh wait no, I mean- what’re the chances..?”

I sighed.

“Kel- there’s something you’re not telling me about how you got this game.”

“Ugh. Alright, fine. I’ll be over after work- in two hours?”

I glanced at my watch then sighed.

“Fine.”

When Kelly showed up after work, I was still reading through the long list of documents that came with the VR headset.

I let her in with a disapproving glare.

“Start talking.”

Kelly apparently came straight over from work, and was still in her work clothes; a stiff looking blouse under a plain skirted suit.

She laughed nervously in that typical ‘I know I’m in trouble’ little sister way, which contrasted pretty sharply with the seriousness that her work outfit exuded.

When Kelly got all dressed up for work like that, she didn’t look like my kid sister anymore.

She looked so mature and self-assured that I almost couldn’t bring myself to scold her.

Sure enough, under the get-up she was still my giggly, immature, ditzy little sis, but she sure didn’t look like it right now.

“Okay- don’t be mad.”

“Funny how that sentence always precedes something very maddening.”

She chuckled nervously, as she plopped down on the loveseat.

“Soo- the technology is still experimental. At least officially.”

“And you know this… how?”

“Dad’s company was one of the small businesses running the servers for them.”

“What?”

“They had beta servers in fifty locations globally. Dad’s company handled the server for one of the East Coast servers.

“Oh- wait, did dad even know it was for a game?”

“Haha, no. He didn’t at first. But they applied for the license under a medical group doing research on ALS. Apparently the game was developed under the same group.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re still doing accounts for dad.”

“No- not anymore at least.”

I shot her a stern glare.

“What? They were paying me, so I just did it for some extra money on the side.”

“You have your own job to focus on, Kel.”

“Umm- about that,” she was fidgeting again and I sighed apprehensively.

“Spill it.”

“Well- when dad’s company was setting up the servers, I kind of signed up for the beta testing program.”

“You helped them test the technogoy,” I muttered with a sigh, and she nodded with another nervous laugh.

“Why on earth would you do something so stupid?”

“They paid really well, Josh. I have enough saved up for college already, and I could afford to buy early access for you as well. Come on, take a look at this!”

She got to her knees in front of me, then turning away from me, she lifted away the hair from the back of her head.

“Jesus- Kel, what is that?”

“It’s my spinal implant. Isn’t it cool?!”

“Your- what?”

“They used an implant to test motor cognition.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding. There is no way they expect all of the players to do that.”

“No silly! This was just for the testers.”

Kelly seemed to think it was pretty cool, but her excitement died the moment she turned around and saw the growing look of horror in my eyes.

I massaged my temple, trying to suppress the headache that was already in gear.

All those release forms sitting on my desk.

She must have signed twice as many.

If the technology required that many medicals even for the game’s official release, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what the risks must have been for a tester.

“Kelly, this thing is more than just a game.”

“Trust me- I know.”

“What would you have done if something went wrong?”

“Nothing did.”

I tried to stop the tears from welling up in my eyes, but they came anyway.

_What would I have done if something happened to you?_

She came over to me, and put her hands on my cheeks, cupping my face.

“I’m fine, Josh, nothing happened to me. I’m fine!”

She kept saying it over and over but nothing could stop me from thinking that I could lose anyone in the world but her.

I pressed my face into her chest, and pulled her into a hug, and she held onto me for dear life as my tears fell quietly onto her chest.

Kelly had never really done anything truly dangerous in her life, so I always felt that I didn’t have to worry. But the uncertainty I felt over what she did made me realize just how terrifying the thought of losing her could really be.

When I finally calmed down a bit she still held onto me, stroking my hair reassuringly.

She was always so warm and delicate in my arms.

I nuzzled her affectionately, then let her settle down onto my lap, but my worry still showed through.

“I can’t believe you did all this without even telling me.”

She pouted, appealing to my softer big brother side.

“Well- I got you into early access. That has to count for something, right?” She winked at me pleadingly, and I sighed.

I put my arms around her head, and my fingers absently brushed a little metallic ring at the back of her neck.

“You know, technically you’re now a cyborg.”

“Eh?”

“Implant?” I tapped the ring with my fingernails, and she giggled in response before leaping off of me and starting to move about in a stiff, mechanical way.

“Joshua… Hegel… you will… love… and worship… your little… sister… or face… immediate… termination… by tickling… do you… comply?” she spoke in her best imitation of a dry robotic tone.

“Are you a tickle bot? You know, I’ve always wanted one of those,” I muttered thoughtfully.

“This… is your final warning… human. Promise… to play… this game… with your… little sister… or else- ahh, stop!” she giggled and yelled as I brushed her armpits with my finger tips, but I quickly let up as she was definitely wearing the wrong kind of clothes for horseplay.

“Why are you so intent on getting me to play this game?” I asked.

“Have you played anything Josh? Since- you know… Since she left?” Kelly asked, as she took a seat on the mat next to the couch.

I rolled my eyes at her attempt to brooch the touchy topic that I’d been all too happy to avoid for the rest of my life if it were at all possible.

“You can say her name you know.”

“Okay. Have you played anything since that _dumb_ _bitch_ left?” she smiled cutely, and I patted her on the head.

“No. I haven’t, but since when is that such a big deal?”

“Gaming meant a lot to you before you met her. A lot of things meant a lot to you before you met her. I just don’t want to see you sitting here forgetting that anymore.”

“Does me being a loser worry you that much?”

She aimed a blow at my shins angrily.

“You can be as much of a loser as you want, Josh, but thinking that you’re a loser because some _bitch_ couldn’t see your worth? _That’s_ the part I can’t accept!”

Kelly had a point though. Since my ex-wife left me I hadn’t really been doing much at all, much less making time for recreational activities like gaming.

I’d always worried about my sister a lot. As a big brother, that was kind of a given.

But now I noticed that she probably worried about me as well.

_It was kind of endearing, now that I think about it._

“I guess I have no choice then, huh.”

“Yup. Besides, I promise you will love this game. It’s unlike… _anything_ imaginable.”

I got up and stretched lazily.

“Fine then- you better get home now.”

“Ehh, why?”

“You’re still in your work clothes, doofus. Go home, shower, change, relax… Do whatever. I’ll start working on the paperwork.”

She folded her arms angrily.

“Fine. Just don’t come crying to me when you need help!”

She stuck her tongue out at me, then headed for the door.

“Seriously though, don’t put this off. You have less than three weeks to get everything done.”

“Alright, I got it. Now shoo.”

She gave me one more ‘hmph!’ before stepping out and pulling the door shut, leaving me once more with the emptiness that seemed to engulf my apartment whenever she left.

“Well then,” I muttered to myself, “better get to it.”

* * *

By the end of the week, I was done filling in the necessary forms, but I still needed to complete certain medicals to scan and upload to my online player profile.

Part of the necessary info however required that I go through a series of rigorous calibration exercises using my VR set.

First I had to wear it for hours while performing some mundane day-to-day tasks, then I had perform a long list of tasks as instructed while the headset recorded the data and uploaded it to my online profile.

I quickly realized that the headset itself wasn’t really what Kelly probably paid a fortune for, but rather the handling of the game profile that I was now building.

It took a week and then some before I’d made it through the calibration process.

It would have probably even longer if I wasn’t out of a job.

But I couldn’t even let Kelly know about that just yet.

She was worried enough about me as is, and I didn’t need to make matters worse.

Every day when she called to find out how the procedure had been going I just told her that it was coming along before trying to change the subject to something else.

Of course it didn’t help that she’d keep asking me about work, and if I was planning on taking time off for the game’s launch, but I was had grown somewhat accustomed to being elusive about those personal questions.

Kelly wasn’t happy about it.

I could tell.

But she didn’t push it, so I was satisfied keeping up the farce.

Besides, I’d come clean with her anyway as soon as I’d gotten back to more stable work and things had settled down.

Truthfully, the sign-up process for the game alone was more activity than I’d been doing recently, and I was pretty relieved to have gotten through it all.

_Since she left…_

I glanced at my cell phone, feeling the sudden urge to give her a call.

 _You know you shouldn’t,_ I told myself, but that didn’t stop me from picking up the phone and quickly searching out her name in my contacts.

I checked twice before noticing that it was indeed missing.

Then I searched by the number instead and found it was now saved under the name ‘Dumb bitch’.

 _Kelly_ , I thought to myself, before tossing the phone onto the bed with a sigh.

_If I couldn’t even hold on to a ‘dumb bitch’ then what exactly did that make me?_

I plopped down on the bed next to the phone and ruminated over it a bit, before deciding to make the call.

It rang five or six times, and I was about to hang up when she answered:

“Ugh. Josh, _why_ are you calling me?”

“Uhh- I dunno, Tracey? To see if you’re alive, I guess?”

“And why the fuck is that your problem?”

“Old habits...”

I heard an exasperated sigh on the other end, and wondered silently how someone I was so close to me could so easily cut me out of her life.

Before getting married about a year ago, Tracey and I had been together for about five years. She was my only girlfriend and we’d been together since we were seventeen, but shortly after getting married, she basically decided on her own that we’d drifted apart, but not before I started hearing rumors that she’d been spotted around town with Michael, an ex-work colleague and at the time, close friend.

The silence continued for another minute, before I could feel the tension cutting through my heart.

“Have you been good?” I asked, desperately.

“Yes, I’ve been good- look I’ve gotta go.”

“Wait-”

“Bye.”

*Click!

“Ugh!”

I threw the phone across the room and it landed with a thud, after bouncing off of the dresser.

With a sigh, I rolled off the bed and went for the nightstand, opening the top drawer and fishing out the nearly empty little bottle of sleeping pills.

For months after Tracey left I barely slept, and eventually I got a doctor to prescribe me some sleeping pills to help with the insomnia.

I was supposed to take them nightly to regularize my sleeping pattern, but instead of taking them as prescribed I saved them for the nights when I really needed a quick route to unconsciousness.

Like right now.

With a heavy sigh I shook one pill from the bottle, then after thinking about it for a moment or two, I shook another one out.

I looked around my bedside for my water bottle, but it was empty, so I shut my eyes tight and swallowed them dry, cringing as the bitter taste hit my tongue.

The demons were already whispering, and I was desperate to shut them out.

I rolled over and grabbed a pillow, searching my mind trying to find anywhere else to be while I waited for the pills to take effect.

Why was I like this?

Why did it turn out like this?

The questions would go on all night if left unchecked, but my meds were nothing if not effective, and it wasn’t too long before my double dose came into effect.

When I woke up, it was cold but a curious feeling of warmth seemed to wrap me in a comforting way that I could not describe.

“Tracey…” I muttered absently, before shaking my head.

No.

Definitely not.

There was only one person who could make me feel warm like this.

_Kelly._

I rolled over, and like a dream, she was there.

Strands of her blonde hair moved across her silky soft cheeks as little wisps of air came out with each, soft little breath.

She always slept like an angel, so peaceful and serene.

Watching her sleep used to bring me such an unreal sense of ease, but now I could only wonder how such a perfect beautiful creature could even share the same genes with someone as wretched as me.

I brushed the little strands of hair from her face, and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

“I love you,” I whispered, softly and sweetly to the precious dream that I didn’t even deserve, but as her eyelids fluttered awake, she looked at me with a cranky little smile.

“I love you too,” she whispered, before shuffling over to me, and pulling my arms about her.

“This is a nice dream,” I whispered absently, and she giggled.

“Is it now? Hey, Josh, what kind of dream is this exactly? You weren’t having your way with me, were you?” she winked at me teasingly.

I blinked stupidly at the question, and tried to take stock of the situation.

This… was a dream, right?

Kelly couldn’t be…

But she had that goofy smile on her face and it erased any remaining doubt.

I put my hands over my face in embarrassment.

“Oh God, how the hell did you get here?”

“Well now, someone wasn’t answering their phone no matter how many times I called since last night, and when I got here you weren’t answering the door either. So I let myself in,” she replied with a ‘isn’t that obvious?’ tone.

“Since when do you have a key?”

“Since your bitch of an ex-wife threw it at me when I tried to talk to her…”

“Oh? When did you talk to-?” I shot up, but Kelly glared at me and I slumped back down with a sigh.

“I’m sorry- you deserve a key more than she does anyway.”

“Hmnn. Well I think I can forgive you, now that I know you ~super love~ me!”

She was kicking her feet back and forth gleefully, and I covered my face in shame again:

“Oh god, just kill me now.”

“Is that what these were for?” she held up the bottle of sleeping pills in front of me, and I groaned again.

“They’re for helping me sleep.”

“Do you even know what time it is?”

“Wha-?”

“It’s midday Josh. I’ve been here all morning- you were out cold.”

“I was up late.”

“Bullshit- I came last night too. The lights were out, and you weren’t answering the door. Do you have any idea how crazy I went worrying about you?”

“Jeez, Kelly- I’m sorry.”

She sat up, resting a hand on my chest as she studied me seriously.

“Were you trying to overdose?”

“No.”

“How many did you take?”

“Two…”

She threw the bottle at me, hard, but I did my best not to flinch.

“Last week you asked me what I’d do if something happened to me, but what do you think I’d do if something happened to you? Do you think I want to lose you, Josh?”

I sighed.

“You’re right, Kel- I’m sorry.”

She looked at me with her arms folded across her chest, before her glare softened slightly.

“I want to help you Josh, but you keep pushing me away. This is hard, and I get it. But stop trying to go at it alone.”

I nodded as she spoke, and she slid over to me again, wrapping her hands around my own.

“From now on, no more secrets- okay?”

I nodded again, and she pressed her forehead into my hands, before getting off of the bed to draw the curtains, letting some light illuminate the unnatural darkness of my room.

“Come on. Let’s get you something to eat. We’ve got all day to talk.”

“Alright.”

“I brought clothes, by the way.”

“Huh?”

“The game launches in two days and I took some time off, so I figured I could stay here for the week?”

“Oh, okay.”

“Did you take time off too? For the launch at least?”

I sighed.

“Nothing to take time off from.”

She walked over to me and put her hands on my cheeks, with a worried look in her eyes.

“Well- maybe that’s for the best, Joshie. You need time to heal.”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“Why? I always did when-” her words trailed off as I withdrew, unable to hide the little sting that the nickname delivered, and she just looked away with an uncertain gulp.

_You weren’t the only one who used to call me that._

“Just- shower, okay? I’ll see what I can do about lunch,” she muttered, as she headed off for the kitchen.

When I was done bathing, I joined Kelly in the kitchen, where she was trying her best to breathe new life into some old, frozen, chicken nuggets.

“Are these nuggets even good? They look freezer burned to death.”

“Dunno, but I am gonna fry the hell out of them,” Kelly muttered with a ‘challenge accepted’ look of determination on her face.

“How about we go shopping? I’ll cook us a real meal and we can get some frozen stuff for our gaming binge.”

She turned to me with an angry frown.

“Are my nuggets not good enough for you?”

“No offence, but I think all life left those things with my ex-wife…”

Kelly giggled at the comment, and I smiled.

Somewhere inside it still hurt to make a joke like that, but the smile on my little sister’s face made it somewhat worthwhile.

I needed to lighten the mood anyway.

Kelly was determined to cheer me up, and the last thing I wanted was to make her feel like if she wasn’t succeeding at all.

We made a quick groceries run, making sure to stock up on snacks, frozen foods and lots of soda.

These were the staples of a binge gamer, and we would definitely need them all in copious amounts if this game was anywhere near as engaging as the reviews indicated.

We chatted a little as we prepared lunch and ate, but thankfully the talk was a lot more light hearted and carefree.

The next day, Kelly gave me a crash course on what to expect when we started playing, and we followed it up by going through some of the game materiel available online.

From the beta-test, Kelly was familiar with some of the core mechanics and gameplay, but a lot of it was new even to her, so by the time the day of the launch came we were both pretty psyched to finally get into it.

* * *

“Ready?” Kelly asked.

“Yup.”

We’d fully charged our headsets the night before as recommended, though they were to remain plugged in at all times while we played anyway.

I put my headset on and a little red light blinked somewhere off to my right.

“What is that?”

“Your tracking beacon.”

“My- what now?”

“Tracking beacon- the VR disables your motor functions while you’re in the simulated space. If something happens someone will need to come get you.”

It was unnerving to think about it, but I did remember reading that the headset intercepted all signals from the brain that would be sent down my neural pathways telling my muscles what to do.

So instead of moving my hand while I was in the game, my brain would tell my virtual body to move its hand instead.

“Remind me again how much you paid for this?”

“Not a chance.”

“That reminds me, how do we eat while we play?”

“You can’t.”

“Huh?”

“Gotta log out if you wanna.”

I eyed the nachos I’d left close-by disappointedly, and Kelly giggled.

“You won’t even know you’re hungry when you’re in there.”

She tapped the headset.

“This interacts directly with your brain. Your body just goes on autopilot.”

“So how am I supposed to know when I’m hungry?”

“You’ll have to time your meals. When you get hungry in game, eating game food tricks your brain into thinking that your hunger is satisfied. If you aren’t careful, you could starve without knowing it. This was on the release forms you know.”

“Uh- I may have skimmed a bit.”

She tried to aim a kick at my shins but she couldn’t reach me from her perch on the loveseat.

“Why are you all the way over there?” she asked, with a little pout.

“Because this is my favorite couch, and thankfully it’s just far enough.”

She folded her arms crossly, when a little timer went off on her phone.

“It’s up! Let’s go!”

I tapped the initialize button on the side of the headset and immediately felt a curious sensation, as if my body had been plunged into a deep dark pond.

My senses went blank in an instant, until a little light in the distance appeared.

As the light drew closer, I suddenly noticed that more lights were appearing, and I suddenly felt as if I were floating through space.

I looked to my left, and my right, and while the disorienting feeling of being weightless and unable to see my own body still bothered me, there was an exhilaration to it that I could not describe.

It was transcendental almost, and I found it hard to believe that this was just the title screen alone.

 **Mythic Lands Online** , the letters appeared in a styled font formed by the floating specks of light.

As the production team and studio mentions appeared and faded into the floating space, I suddenly felt the sensation of falling, and just like that, there I was.

I looked down and sure, there was my body, arms legs and all, clothed in some typical fantasy themed rags.

My immediate concern was that Kelly was nowhere in sight, but I quickly recalled her mention of the tutorial section which took place in a separate space from the main game server.

“Hi there. You must be new.”

I turned around to see a little girl looking timidly at me from behind a stall counter.

“Um- hi.”

She smiled at me, and I couldn’t help but wonder at the novelty of the whole situation.

Her design was so realistic; even though there was a clear difference between the appearance of a human and this 3d rendered image, the way she moved, it was so fluid and natural, and she looked perfect in that way that only a computer generated image could.

“Are you lost? Papa said that if anyone showed up, I should bring them to him. Do you want to go there now?”

I pondered the question.

Sure this was probably the start of the tutorial, but I found myself wondering what would happen if I broke away from the script.

“Not just yet. I think I’ll just take a look around first.”

“Okay! Can I come with you?”

I nodded, and to my surprise she came around the stall and took my hand.

This sent a jolt up my spine.

Her hand was warm, and it felt as real as any hand I’d ever held.

 _Wow,_ I thought, _I can even feel goosebumps in here!_

“My name is Lina. What’s your name?”

“Josh,” I replied, then cursed myself as a little ping went off in my head.

_Did I really just name my character Josh?_

She started humming a cute little tune as she walked with me, not pulling me in any particular direction but merely following along with wherever I wanted to go.

 _Hmm,_ I thought.

Even in this tutorial world there was nothing that imposed a sense of urgency, or anything to railroad me along.

And if I didn’t know better I’d swear this kid was real.

I walked around a bit wondering if I should test the limits of her programming, but thought better of it. After all, Kelly would be waiting for me on the main server.

I met up with the girl’s dad, who took me through some basics of how to interact with the game world under the guise of teaching a ‘green youngster’ a trick or two that he’d learned over the years.

It wasn’t very difficult getting through the various exercises.

After all, Kelly had more or less gone through most of these with me before.

Apart from that, my younger days of gaming were coming back to me (to my relief), and I quickly grasped the basics of how the game worked so it wasn’t long before Lina and her papa were waving me off.

“Come back and visit us sometime!” Lina yelled, as I made my way to the edge of the town.

A little donkey-drawn cart awaited me to take me to what the driver referred to as the mystical land of _Fey._

When I got there, the first thing that struck me was that loads of other people who I instantly recognized as players like myself, were coming into the city in droves of carts like the one that I was now on.

I had anticipated that the tutorial would end with some sort of loading screen before I went on to join the main server; but apparently the tutorial was merely a part of the actual game world itself.

The attention to details, I had to admit, were simply fantastic.

I was still staring in awe at the sheer beauty of it, when a little ping went off in my head.

I lifted my hand, and extended my index finger, and sure enough a little menu appeared in front of me, with a little red dot indicating that I’d received a message.

**Did you really take that long with the tutorial, or were you fucking around?**

How did I reply?

Oh right, ‘cast message,’ I thought.

I was surprised by how easily the interface found Kelly’s character name, but then again- I wasn’t really using my hands. This input was dependent on thoughts, and it seemed to be working almost seamlessly.

**Where are you? And can you blame me, this is beyond anything I could have imagined.**

She sent me directions and thankfully, I was able to access a map of the town from my character journal.

“Oh my god, you look nothing like you,” she teased, as soon as she saw me.

Although character creation was done entirely prior to the launch, we had each done our own characters in private, so it was the first time we were seeing each other.

“Isn’t that kind of the point? Besides-” I leaned in closer to whisper, “You know, yours aren’t that big.”

“W-wha?” I glanced subtly at her chest, and she almost immediately blushed, before quickly stalking off.

I waited for her to look back before catching up.

“So… what do we do first?”

“Choose classes.”

“Right. The guilds?”

“Yeah. Your starting village should have given you a supply pack. There’s enough gold for you to at least pay for your first skill tree.”

“Okay. So let’s do that and meet back up here?”

“Yup. Don’t take forever this time, kay?!” She yelled, as I took off for the guild at a sprint.

I could feel the wind blowing past me as I ran.

This was amazing!

I wasn’t exactly unfit, but it felt as if I’d been transformed into an Olympic athlete overnight.

It was unlike anything I’d ever felt.

I quickly pulled up the map as I ran, then located the guild hall I’d chosen to start out with.

Kelly and I had already settled on a class combo that suited us pretty well.

Ranger/Rogue.

And it would be pretty good if she was as good with a bow as she claimed to be.

Nonetheless, we met up less than twenty minutes later in front of the town’s fountains.

“Yes! Now this is where it really gets good. The woods! They’re amazing! You can feel the wind, taste the air! It’s fresher than anything you ever felt!”

She was practically grinning with excitement, and I couldn’t help but get caught up in the infectiously good atmosphere that she carried with her.

“Okay! Let’s go kill some woodland critters.”

One of the more impressive features of the game was the level of immersion that it offered the players.

For instance, you had to find some means to feed your character at regular intervals during play to sustain them; a feature that most games pretty much avoided because it risked bogging the players down with unnecessary things that got in the way of killing random shit.

Due to the level of immersion that Fey encouraged however, it was already being touted as one of the few instances where this sort of immersion was a welcome addition, and I could see why: A simple thing like hunting for food was wildly enjoyable simply because of the sheer level of detail that this virtual world had to offer.

“Kelly-” I dashed up to my sister, and snuck up behind her, giving her a surprise hug.

She gave a little shriek, then relaxed.

“Thank you… you were right- I needed this.”

She smiled, and patted me on the head.

“Don’t worry about it. Now- let’s kill some critters!”

We snuck around the forests on the outside of the starting town, taking out little game like rabbits, small birds, and squirrels, and collecting along the way some herbs and other stuff that could be used for cooking and potion making that Kelly was able to identify due to her class supplied hunting guide.

We kept it up for an hour or two before I actually noticed that my stomach had begun to grumble hungrily.

“Whoa- is that?”

“Yup. Feels just like being hungry in real life, huh? The game sends the same signals to your brain as your body would if you were hungry.”

Even though I read about that and understood it in theory, actually experiencing it was an altogether different thing.

“So. What do we do? Eat here, or log out and have some nachos?”

“Oh, we’re eating here. You need to experience this. Besides, it’s been what? Three hours? It’s barely lunchtime, idiot.”

She stuck out her tongue and teased me, before getting started on a fire.

While she got the fire going, she instructed me on which herbs to crush and add to season the meats, which she then roasted over a spit.

She was practically licking her lips as the meat roasted over the open flame, and I couldn’t help but chuckle as I remembered what an awful cook she was growing up.

“You wish you could be this good at cooking,” and she shot me a quick glare.

“What’s wrong with my cooking?”

She grumbled a little more before getting back to the task at hand.

When she was done, she gave a little ‘tada’ as she presented the roasted meats on neat little skewers.

Some of them ‘vanished’ away into her backpack in a glowing ball of light, leaving two rows of juicy looking meat before us.

“Well? Eat up!”

She began eating her own portions, while I eyed the food suspiciously.

This was Kelly’s cooking after all.

“We can get better cooking gear when we level up the skills a bit, then I can make stews, bread, and all kinds of pastries,” she added enthusiastically.

“Who are you and what have you done with my cooking impaired sister?”

She glared at me again, so I quickly took a bite of the meat and to my surprise it was absolutely superb!

“Holy shit, this is actually edible.”

“Keep it up, Josh. I’ll make you level up your own cooking skill.”

I quickly gobbled down the two skewers of meat and Kelly was glowering over me with smug look of satisfaction.

I rolled my eyes, knowing she was waiting for praise, but I eventually relented.

“Fine, fine- you did well, sis,” I muttered, patting her on the head with an exaggerated show of reluctance.

But she was beaming, and I couldn’t help but smile with her.

I studied her a little, and she began to shift uncomfortably.

“What? You’re staring…”

“I’m sorry, it’s just- you sound like my sister, but you look nothing like her. In fact, you kind of look like the typical fantasy game dream girl.”

“Eh? Really now,” she replied, her tone flirtatious and playful. “Too bad I can’t say the same about you though. Seriously, you overdid it with the muscles. Rogues don’t need all that fluff. Besides, I kind of liked your body the way it is,” she added with a dismissive wave.

Kelly’s comment, while absent mindedly delivered in her typical ditzy fashion, left me staring at her in open mouthed shock, and she took a while to notice what she’d just said.

“W-wait no, I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t, like, check you out, or anything- I mean, just- uh, from a purely objective standpoint! Just- shut up!”

 _But you’re the one who’s talking sis,_ I thought, almost unable to stop myself from beaming at her as she finished her ramble.

She folded her arms angrily, when suddenly she twitched a little, which I guessed meant that she’d gotten a notification of some kind.

“Message?” I enquired, and she kind of tilted her head a little in uncertainty.

“Hold on. I think it’s a phone call.”

“What?”

She moved her hand about, interacting with her character profile as she spoke.

“Our phones are synced to the headgear, so we can receive phone calls. Mom?”

I perked up, my interest piqued.

“Mom- slow down, I can’t make out what you’re trying to- uh yeah, he’s with me, mom calm down.”

“What’s going on,” I mouthed to Kelly, but she held up a finger to cut me off.

“Mom, that’s not possible. We’re fine- I told you mom, I tested the game before. It’s fine. Wha- what do you mean it’s on the news. Huh? Yeah, we’re in the game right now- oh my god, calm down mom.”

Kelly gave me a puzzled look that was equal parts confusion and worry.

“Mom, relax. We’ll log out and I’ll call you back, okay. Just- hold on.”

She made a few movements with her hands before returning her full attention to me.

“Mom said there’s something on the news- some problem with the game and deaths being reported.”

“What?”

“I doubt its real- she probably just saw some propaganda nonsense and panicked but let’s just log out and talk to her anyway.”

“Alright. Do we have to head back into town?”

“Nah, this is a safe zone. You can log out from any area like this.”

She made a few movements with her hand, then frowned.

“What?” I asked.

“I’m not sure- try logging out a sec?”

I pulled up my personal journal, then switched to the menu where the logout option was highlighted.

I tapped on it, only to see ‘that option is currently unavailable’ pop up.

“Are you getting that message too? What does it mean?”

“I-I don’t know…”

The worried look on Kelly’s face was now turning into full blown panic.

“Isn’t there another way?”

She shook her head.

“We can’t exactly move- I, uh.. I dunno what to do… Josh.”

Tears were welling up in her eyes, and I immediately noticed that despite the visual difference between my sister and her game avatar, her mannerisms remained identical.

It was both comforting and unnerving at the same time.

“Relax, it’s probably just a glitch. I mean the game just launched. Let’s go back to town, maybe we can contact an admin?”

_Or so we thought._

By the time we got back to town the place was swarming with panicked players, with some visibly distraught while others were in tears.

It was absolute chaos.

Admins were unable to even respond due to the overload of message requests, and even the in game neutral player characters (NPCs), were being swarmed by players desperate for some answers.

We weren’t able to get any kind of useful info until we came across a crowd gathered near the fountains at the town square.

“-please do not ignore the warnings. Move in groups, and avoid doing anything risky. Until we have more information, please keep from doing anything dangerous.”

The speaker continued on for a bit, but I felt as if we’d missed the more important parts of the speech.

“Oh God,” Kelly muttered as she stared up at the speaker.

“What?”

“That’s Galvan- I can see his gamer tag because I have him added as a friend on my profile. He was an admin for the beta test.”

“What was he in? Game design?”

“No- psychological evaluation. But if he’s giving those warnings then this is worse than I thought.”

Kelly was panicking again, so I took her hand and tried to soothe her as best as I could.

The speaker, or Galvan as Kelly mentioned, was about to start speaking again when a commotion drew proceedings to a halt.

“If you’re an admin, then you’re responsible for this!” a man in a black hooded robe shouted.

*“Yeah!” came a few cries from the crowd, and Galvan was quickly rushed from the square down a street opposite where we stood at the southern edge of the square.

Hysteria was taking over for sure, but even so; the response seemed so strange.

This was a safe zone.

Even if people rioted, there wasn’t anything they could do, could they?

Thankfully, most of the more agitated members of the crowd disappeared after Galvan, and the rest of the group began to simmer down considerably.

As the crowd dispersed, I decided to try and get some info out of anyone who had been there for the whole speech.

There were some who knew little, or seemed reluctant to talk, and we were about to give up hope when we came across a small group who were calm and willing enough folk.

“I’m David, this is Trevor and Dana. We’re clan members from another game. You two are?”

“Josh- this is my sister, uh-”

“U-um, Auriel,” Kelly introduced herself using her gamer tag, before whispering to my side, “I’m gonna try to call mom.”

“Nice to meet you,” David muttered, eyeing her uncertainly.

“So what’s the deal?” I asked.

“Characters who die in-game have been disappearing when they should have just respawned. Word is that they’re actually dying in real life.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah- that was our reaction too, but a few people have gotten snippets from news in messages from friends and family. It appears to be legit.”

“Did any of your-?”

“No. This is our group as we came in,” he added with a sigh. “There’s more though- apparently the pain inhibitors have been lifted. When you take damage in game, it hurts- like hell. That’s what’s accounting for these two being uncharacteristically quiet,” he motioned to his comrades as he continued:

“They decided to test it with a duel and well…”

I suddenly noticed that the girl seemed to be squirming uncomfortably as her comrade tried to comfort her.

“Mom- stop freaking out, we’re okay for now. No mom, just listen to the news and keep me up to date-”

“Hey, little lady. Might wanna tell your mom not to try unplugging you by force, okay? That’d be as bad as” he made a finger across the throat gesture, and Kelly shot me a worried look before slinking out of earshot.

I looked back at him.

“Any word on how this happened?” I asked.

“Nothing solid. Some cyber terrorist groups are claiming responsibility. Other reports say negligence- but that admin who was talking just then had all his privileges revoked. That seems pretty intentional to me.”

I pondered the news.

“You seem to be taking this- well,” David noted with interest.

Sure, this was a lot to take in, but I was more worried about Kelly than anything else.

To be honest the fear that I might die didn’t even register on my radar, so I tried to just pass it off a putting on a brave face, which seemed to satisfy David.

“Here- I’ll send you a friend request. If you two want to join up, let me know. Moving in bigger groups might be wiser at the moment.”

I accepted the request and thanked him for everything, before returning my attention to Kelly who had just gotten off the phone with mom.

“So status?”

She was shaking, and I once again found that I had to remind myself that this beautiful vixen straight out of a fantasy novel was in fact my little sister.

“Mom knew about the thing about forcing the headgear off, so that’s fine. We aren’t in immediate danger from that. She’s coming over tonight to stay with our- uh, bodies, and I asked her to make sure to charge our phones.”

“Hm. You know, I thought I’d read that taking the headgear off while we were in game would just leave you disoriented for a bit until you adjusted to getting out. Why’d that change?” I asked.

“It didn’t- but the pain inhibitors were never meant to be taken off. When the headgear comes off by force, the brain reads it as a severing of every nerve in the body. You’d die from shock.”

“Oh… So- what do we do now?” I asked.

“Wait it out… I guess?”

We walked around town a bit, but it was difficult to escape the masses of distraught players everywhere around us, and I soon realized that it was really affecting Kelly.

“Hey- let’s go hunting again.”

“Wha-? Why?”

“It’s not dangerous, right? We don’t exactly have anything better to do. Besides- it might do us some good. Being away from… this,” I gestured at the general atmosphere, and Kelly gave me a little smile.

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

So we went out, and caught quite a bit of game meat before returning back to town with our haul, hoping that by then there would be some positive developments on the situation.

But when we returned things seemed bleaker than ever.

The living spaces in the town were filled beyond capacity, and players were now setting up camps on the outskirts of the town, in pretty much whatever space they could.

“Jeez- it almost looks like a refugee camp,” I noted, as Kelly and I surveyed the scene.

“We should probably find somewhere to set up too,” Kelly muttered, so we set about doing just that.

Everyone appeared to be eating rations or other dry foods, so Kelly and I decided against cooking dinner, and opted for a similarly standard meal.

“Do we sleep? Can we even?”

“Yeah- we can. There is a sleep function. Our bodies don’t tire in here the way real ones do, but our brains still need to rest.”

“Kel- why did they even make a sleep function.”

Tears began to well up in her eyes.

“When I was doing the testing, they had us stay in the game for twenty-four hours once, as a stress test… or at least that’s what they said. We used the sleep function then.”

“What was it like?”

“Felt the same way like sleeping normally. Dreams and everything... Josh- do you think they were planning this all along?”

“There’s no way to know- Kel, but if you start blaming yourself for getting me into this, I’m gonna smack you across the face.”

“But it is my-”

“Stop it. You couldn’t have known this was going to happen, so just leave that thought right there, okay? I’m gonna set up my tent over-”

“No!”

“What?”

“Let’s just- share.”

I studied her a bit, and she shifted uncomfortably before continuing:

“Tents have limited uses and I think we shouldn’t waste them. You know- just to be on the safe side.”

“Okay.”

She walked over to me, and wrapped her arms around me.

“Besides… I don’t wanna sleep alone in this place Josh,” she added timidly.

“It’s okay,” I replied, as I put my arms around her, running my hands through her hair and giving her scalp a little affectionate rub.

She felt so different physically.

Though my sister’s hair was soft and I could always smell the subtle scent of her shampoo when I held her close like this, it never felt airy and wispy in this way, and her scent was something altogether different; like a strange flower that I couldn’t quite place.

I was thinking this as I planted a gentle little kiss on her forehead, when suddenly Kelly yelped and recoiled, after feeling a little jolt of my own.

*!

That couldn’t be- was it?

I felt the strange sensation that I could only associate with arousal, go off somewhere in my brain.

“What was that?” I asked absently, as Kelly blushed, obviously feeling the same thing I did.

“I dunno- I think the game interpreted our action as- uh, something else and sent a weird response to our brains.”

“Probably a glitch?” I offered uncertainly.

“Y-yeah, I guess,” she muttered timidly.

“Aren’t responses like that supposed to be filtered out though?”

“Yeah- but I guess my reaction didn’t read as resistant, so it didn’t automatically filter.”

I did remember reading that inter-player stimuli were filtered based on our automatic reactions to the other player’s actions.

Even outside of designated safe zones where you could swing a sword or throw a fireball at someone, you still couldn’t get away with so much as a hug unless the player was accepting to it.

With a game that depended so much on your own senses for inputs, it was natural for the creators to find some way to protect a player’s personal sense of space.

Setting up the camp was quick, since most of the process was automated, but I was thankful to find that the tent was pretty spacious and comfortable.

As we settled into our tent, I remembered something that I’d read about the interaction filters:

“Hey, open up your character journal for a sec.”

Kelly nodded, raising her hand to open up the interface as I did the same.

“There should be an interaction filter in the privacy settings.”

“Yeah. I see it.”

“Add my name to the restricted list- it should prevent any weird glitches like just now.”

She nodded, then closed off her interface before scooting over to where I sat.

I put my arms around her and held her tight, and she wriggled a bit as she tried to nestle herself into a more comfortable position against my chest.

She wriggled around a bit more, before screwing up her face in annoyance.

“Uh-uh, no. No fucking way!”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, concerned and confused.

She pulled herself out of my arms and quickly opened up her character interface with stern resolve.

“I couldn’t feel- anything! That stupid filter is coming off.”

“What about the-?”

“Fuck it- I rather deal with those glitches than feel nothing when you’re holding me, Josh.”

She closed off the menu, then climbed back into my arms, this time with a contented sigh.

“That was- scary.”

She clutched at my chest, then relaxed as I caressed her back reassuringly.

I was about to ask Kelly if she wanted to sleep a bit when a little ping went off in my head, and from Kelly’s reaction she had gotten one as well.

“What is that? A server message?”

“It- looks like an item,” she muttered.

“Makeover kit?” I asked, as I examined the gift through my interface, then Kelly’s eyes suddenly lit up.

“Oh my god, Josh, can I do yours? Please, please, please?”

This item was apparently a free chance to edit your character’s appearance, and from what I could tell, this was not something that you could normally do otherwise.

“Seriously, what’s wrong with how I look?”

“I want my brother, not someone who sounds like him but looks like Conan the barbarian.”

I sighed.

“Pleeeease?”

She whined, and I knew I had to give in.

“You know, you don’t look like my kid sister either.”

“Yeah- but I look good, don’t I?”

“Are you implying that-?”

“Not implying, I’m saying it. You look terrible. Please?”

I folded my arms angrily, even though I’d more or less decided to let her do it.

There was no saying no to Kelly.

Or at least, it wasn’t the kind of willpower I was born with, so I opened up the kit and she immediately got to work, and after an hour or so of poking, prodding, and protests, she managed to make my character look a lot more like my real body did, while still allowing me to retain some subtle aspects of what I wanted my character to be.

I would never admit it out loud, but she did an amazing job.

I kinda looked like a much better looking, sexy version of myself.

Although it kinda made me wonder about Kelly a bit; I mean sure, little sisters could look up to their older brothers a lot, but damn did she have a clear vision of exactly what she wanted me to be.

Kelly couldn’t hide how pleased she was with herself, but her exhaustion was beginning to show through, so we decided to call it a night.

She turned on her sleep function, before snuggling up against me, and before long she was fast asleep.

From what she’d said, it basically simulated sleep by putting your character’s body into a state of suspended animation, which triggered the brain’s sleep mode causing you to actually sleep.

Of course the brain would wake itself up eventually, but without external triggers to wake you up oversleeping every time was pretty much a given, so there was an internal alarm in place to wake you up whenever you wanted.

As Kelly slept though, I went to work.

Being able to read without moving about definitely had its advantages, I thought, as I brought up the in-game help files from my character journal, and set about reading.

Sure, we could wake up in the morning and be out of this game making all of the reading I was about to do a complete waste.

But I wasn’t prepared to take that chance, not with Kelly’s life at least.

I knew I’d be able to function well enough on three or four hours sleep, so that gave me at least five hours to do my research before I’d have to sleep, in order to wake up just after Kelly did in the morning.

I quickly looked up the class features section of the help files, then started on my research.

* * *

When I woke up, Kelly was already up as I expected, but she was lying on her side staring at me, and I suddenly recalled that this was the second time I’d woken up next to her.

It was pretty comforting, and I felt a curious warm sensation flutter through me.

“Good morning,” she said with a warm smile, and I smiled back at her.

“What’d I miss?” I muttered sleepily, fighting back a yawn, and her expression darkened a bit.

“We finally got a system message, about an hour ago. You might want to give it a read.”

I pulled up my character interface, and sure enough two messages awaited me.

**Greetings player, or should I say, resident of _Fey_.**

**You have been chosen to go on a sacred quest unlike anything that anyone has experienced in the last few hundred years! To experience the kind of life that others could only dream of! From now on, treat your character not like a character, but as an extension of your ‘self’ as you go forth through the lands that have been painstakingly created for your exploration, conquest, and fancy. But beware! Great adventure can only come at a great price, so be ready to lay your very life down before you if you dare to venture through these mystical lands. Surely many amongst you will cower in fear, and never set foot from the safety of your door, but I am sure many still will take up this challenge and show me the true might of the indomitable human spirit! If you are amongst those truly worthy of greatness, then go forth, because before you lies the unique opportunity of countless lifetimes to experience _life,_ like never before!**

**See your village message board for more details!**

**~Prometheus.**

“The fuck is this bullshit,” I muttered.

“He’s a psychopath.”

“Yeah, but who is he?”

“No one knows for sure, but he has absolute control over the game and can send system messages at will apparently.”

I sighed.

“What has the reaction been like?”

“Sounds like hell- but I haven’t been outside yet to check.”

“Ugh. Well alright then, let’s go see.”

We headed outside and sure enough a large crowd was gathered around the message board in the town square.

“We’ll never get through that crowd,” I muttered.

“Wait. That’s Galvan, come on!” Kelly suddenly pulled me towards a little group near the northernmost fountain, and I followed.

“Galvan, that’s you isn’t it?”

“Kelly?” the man replied.

I guess she must have used the same character appearance in the beta test of the game for him to recognize her, but she must have left a pretty good impression for him to remember her by name like that.

As he gave her a little hug, I suddenly noticed that I kind of disliked this dude a bit.

“Kelly, I’ve never been sad to see you until now. I’m so sorry you got caught up in this mess too.”

“What’s been going on? Did you sign up to be a player this time?”

“No, I’m still an admin. Or at least I was. Yesterday when all the weirdness started going down I immediately lost all of my admin privileges, and so have most of the other admins who were in here at the time. None of the others have since been able to get into the game, even with their administrative credentials.”

“Did you all know something was up?”

He shook his head.

“No one had a clue. All the tests and protocols were fine right up until launch time, but the protocols were all changed dramatically at the launch.”

“Do you know who did it?”

“All signs point to Gary; he built this game from the bottom up. The design teams just did their best to bring his visions to life. But he wouldn’t have done it. I won’t believe it until he tells me he did this himself.”

Gary Wright, the rock star of massively multiplayer online games.

His name alone was enough to sell a game out on release day, but he always delivered on what he promised, and though he wasn’t prolific; every game he designed redefined gaming altogether.

“Have you read the board?” Galvan asked.

“No- what’s it say?”

He sighed:

“The game was launched at 9:00 Pacific Standard Time. At 9:15, when the launch was completed successfully, a previously unknown gameplay mode called survival mode was initialized, overwriting certain core features and making dramatic changes to the function of the game. It was at this time that my admin status was altered and certain features took effect; the pain inhibitors were removed, death became a permanent effect, and certain mechanics like starvation, fatigue, and environmental effects were added.”

“Oh my god- the freeze test, the marathon- we tested some of those features, didn’t we?”

“Sadly, yes. It was part of the stress tests for the psychological evaluation. We never imagined it would be used to do this, though. It was supposed to test how players would react to being completely immersed in a foreign environment.”

Kelly shot me a little panicked glance.

If I knew my sister she was probably blaming herself again for playing any part in making this nightmare happen.

“So any word on what this guy wants?” Kelly asked.

“Sort of- the message on the town board ended with this: The game will end when peace has come to the Seven Kingdoms.”

“What?”

“It’s a catch twenty two if I’ve ever seen one, because as far as anyone knows the Seven Kingdoms are designed to be at peace to begin with.”

“Does that mean there’ll be a war?”

“At this point, no one knows- but we’re getting some of the more experienced players together to make some preparations. The admins who were at the other starting towns are also doing the same.”

Someone spoke to Galvan from behind, and he nodded in response.

“I’ve gotta get going- you know, Kelly, we could really use you right now. Your input as a beta tester might be just what we need here.”

“Uh- I don’t mind, but my brother-”

“It’s okay. Go ahead,” I whispered behind her.

Although this was a good opportunity for her to learn some pretty exclusive info, there was also something that I needed to do as well. And it was something that I knew Kelly might be less than enthusiastic about.

“Wha-?” she started in protest, but Galvan was quickly being dragged away himself.

“Just message me when you’re done, and we’ll meet up.”

She nodded, but as she was dragged off she shot me a worried look, and I did my best to reassure her.

“It’ll be fine,” I mouthed, and she gulped, before nodding and heading off.

* * *

It was just before noon when Kelly messaged and we met up just outside of town where we had camped the night before.

When I found her, she looked pretty cross, and I swallowed nervously before heading over.

“So- what did you find out?”

She eyed me sharply, but thankfully my question distracted her from being angry.

“The admins are forming parties to start playing the game- most people think the matter will be solved by the end of the week but if it isn’t they can’t risk sitting still while other groups who may develop into threats get ahead.”

“I see.”

“Galvan asked me to join their squad.”

“What did you s-,” I stopped midsentence as Kelly shot me an icy glare, her anger resurfacing temporarily.

“They’re looking for players B-rank and up mostly, but they were willing to take me in since I played the beta.”

“There are ranks?”

“Yep. From F to S.”

“What rank am I?”

“C.”

“And you?”

“D. Also- most of the S-rank players are already dead.”

I pondered the info.

It did make sense.

You weren’t supposed to feel pain at all from taking damage, and S-rank players sometimes press on early after a game’s launch to get ahead.

A lot of them probably went into risky places to get an early lead on the competition without realizing just what was at stake.

The thing is, pros are usually quite good at quickly gauging how much damage they can take without dying. But I’m guessing that throwing pain into the equation changed the game completely.

I was still ruminating over the news when I noticed that Kelly was staring daggers at me.

“What were you doing?” she asked warily.

“Nothing much- I just, wanted to get a feel for things.”

“Bullshit!”

I sighed.

She wasn’t going to let this go, and this wasn’t the kind of thing I could keep hidden for long.

Besides, she couldn’t do much more than get angry anyway.

“I switched classes.”

She stared at me in shock.

“To what?”

“Tempest.”

She blinked at me disbelievingly.

“Why?”

“It’s better this way.”

“Fuck you, we chose these classes after talking about it all week!” she was seething almost, but I knew she was acting out of hurt, not hatred.

“This wasn’t a death game when we made those choices.”

“Fine then, I’ll change too. What do you want me to-?”

“No. Ranger is fine.”

“What?”

“It’s perfect, and you already know how to-”

“How the fuck does ranger work with tempest, Josh?!”

People were starting to stare, and I guess I should have figured she’d be this upset.

Her assessment was after all spot on.

The ranger/rogue combo was one we settled on because of how well the two classes complimented each other; she could strike from range, and me from stealth; she could maneuver through difficult terrain and wilderness, and I could keep pace with her while remaining hidden.

It was a hit and run combo, but one that we’d played together in the past and were comfortable with.

The tempest on the other hand was a spellcaster class that focused on controlling combat in large scale battles, and providing support to multiple allies while keeping enemies at bay.

“Come-” I took her hand, but she pulled away from me.

I looked into her eyes, unable to stop myself from tearing up a little, and she immediately relented.

“Please- come with me,” I tried again.

She sighed exasperatedly, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

It was what she always did when she was holding back tears, but she gave a little nod and I led her down a pathway that wound from the city to a little clearing before the woods.

There was nothing of interest here, and as a result it was more or less deserted.

“Ranger is safe, Kelly. I just want you to be safe.”

“And what the fuck is safer than rogue, Josh? Or does your safety not matter?”

“It does- but Rogue skills aren’t made for protecting others.”

Tears were in her eyes now, and she was running her hands through her hair as they fell.

“If you die and leave me here Josh, I swear! I’ll-”

*!

I hugged her, and held her tight.

“I’m not trying to leave you, Kel. But I need to make sure you’re safe. Tempest makes me feel more comfortable about being able to do that.”

She fell to her knees, sobbing, and I held her until she calmed down a bit.

The last day had been hell on her.

I know she still felt guilty for getting us into this, but that didn’t matter now.

The only thing that still mattered was getting out of here alive.

And worst case scenario:

This was just the beginning of the game.

* * *

“Okay- lemme hear it,” Kelly muttered flatly, calming down from her emotional outburst.

“What?”

“Your bullshit reasoning for switching to tempest.”

She did have a tendency to see through me, but I was prepared to defend my case.

“Okay… Tempest is a more versatile class- it makes me much more valuable in a larger party.”

“And that affects us, how?”

“I know we were gonna play together, but it might be dangerous for us to do that now. We’ll need to join a party.”

She grumbled, which left me feeling pretty confused.

What was wrong with joining up with a larger group?

“Is that it? Because rogues are pretty useful to large groups too.”

“No- the main reason still stands. It’s easier for me to look out for you- uh, I mean both of us. Look at this.”

I thought about the spell that I learned from the class, and as a blue aura appeared around my hand I placed it to the floor, sending a radar like pulse out around us.

“There are three rabbits, a bunch of lizards, one deer, and two birds in that grove,” I indicated the wilderness to the south of where we stood, and Kelly frowned at me, unfazed.

“Yeah- but you literally have not one single combat skill.”

“I don’t need it.”

She rolled her eyes at me in annoyance, but I was intent on convincing her that this was the better choice. After all, anything was better than letting her know my true motives.

“Watch this. Let’s track that deer.”

She stared at me intently, but I didn’t let up so she eventually acquiesced, gesturing for me to lead the way.

After casting the earlier spell, I could intuitively sense the location of all of the creatures I had detected.

I was, however, very low on magic power, which was the primary drawback of the tempest as a spellcaster class, but I had just enough left to cast one more spell, which would hopefully be enough to convince Kelly.

I got as close to the deer as I dared, which Kelly was surprisingly generous enough to indicate, before I concentrated on one more spell: Mark prey.

A red glow appeared around the deer, which upon touching Kelly’s shoulder, she was also able to see.

She rolled her eyes at me, before drawing an arrow from her quiver and taking aim, then releasing it in the direction of the deer.

It was a hit, and the computer generated creature fell as the arrow sunk into its hide.

As we stood over the fallen animal, Kelly got her hunting tools ready to harvest its meat and whatever else was of use from it, so I gave her a little prod.

“Tell me that’s not useful,” I muttered, but Kelly still looked pretty unhappy.

“I know you, Josh. There’s more to this. You’re not telling me what, but I know.”

I was about to protest further when she continued, softly:

“I’ll let it go Josh, but please… promise me,” she paused her work to look me in the eyes, “promise me that you won’t leave me alone again?”

I wasn’t sure exactly what she meant by again, but I nodded as sincerely as I could manage.

Sometime later that evening, our mom called to let us know that our bodies were being moved by the game company to a secure medical facility somewhere.

It was a pretty emotional experience for her, and she managed to get Kelly pretty worked up as well, so by the time that was done I decided we should probably call it a day.

Over the next few days, I tried my best to keep Kelly’s spirits up, but much of the news we’d received was bleak.

A Chinese hacker tried to get his friend out of the game, but it only resulted in getting him killed.

Then there was an anonymous group who took down a server somewhere in Austria that resulted in about thirty deaths.

As a result, the game company had to redouble efforts to protect players from misguided attempts at rectifying this situation externally, which I could imagine would merely lengthen our own sentences as the company expended resources and time taking additional steps to safeguard our lives.

However as time passed and the realization that we might be stuck in here for longer than anyone imagined, it became increasingly apparent that things that we’d taken for granted might soon become causes for concern; like food, and shelter.

The rations we started with would last about a week, and with the wealth that you got starting out you’d probably be able to buy basic rations for a week or two more.

And that was if the cardboard taste of those things didn’t start driving people crazy first.

Our characters needed to eat, so when food stalls started going up around the edge of town I wasn’t surprised.

From what I could estimate, Kelly and I could hunt a week’s supply of food for the two of us in one day, and we were pretty well set from doing some hunting for the first three or four days.

Thanks to my sensory ability and Kelly’s class traits, we’d also managed to gather a pretty neat collection of herbs, seasonings and rare meats.

The latter wouldn’t ordinarily be of any use in a video game, but due to the game’s direct connection to the brain, delicacies were sure to become valuable in the future, so we decided to hold on to as much as we could.

After those first four days, Kelly and I began scouting.

I was confident that my radar ability could help us steer clear of major threats, and I was quickly learning how to move stealthily without my rogue assisted abilities.

So we visited some of the nearby monster camps and learned what we could.

This info would prove vital if our plan to join up with a party was to work.

We needed info to trade for a place in a good enough party, and much that we’d learned through Kelly’s connection to Galvan would be the kind of info that could get us in trouble quick.

In the first week, there was a group that was trying to gather beta testers to start teaching other players some basic knowledge, and Kelly being her usual helpful self was gravitating towards it.

But I stopped her.

//

“We’ll help people if you want to, but don’t reveal to anyone who doesn’t know that you were a beta tester.”

“Why?” she’d asked, somewhat confused.

“Remember that mob that went after Galvan on the first day? It’s still early, but people are going to start cracking under the stress sooner or later, and anyone they can blame for this will become targets.”

//

It went against her naturally caring nature to ignore the group, but she understood anyway.

When we got back into town on the evening of the fifth day, I suggested that maybe we look up David and his group and ask if they wanted to join up to form a party.

“Why do we need to join a group?”

“Because- It’s dangerous to go alone!” I exclaimed with a wry smile.

“Haha, funny,” she replied sarcastically, despite the broad smile she wore.

“We probably won’t make much progress alone.”

Kelly was still apprehensive about it, but I could tell that much of her resistance had been exhausted as she didn’t protest the idea any further.

Unfortunately though, when we finally did contact David’s group they revealed that they had decided to join Galvan’s squad.

They offered to put in a word for us as well if we wanted to join, but I knew Kelly had already turned them down and I was also fearful that joining an elite squad might expose us to threats that were outside our realm of expertise and pose us unnecessary risk.

What we needed was something a little safer, but which would still be effective.

But we needed to tread carefully, after all this was only the first week.

The only groups who were making plans to play right now, given the circumstances, were elite groups like Galvan’s, the truly insane, and those with- let’s say, less than wholesome intentions.

It took some asking around but eventually we got word of a small group led by a bounty hunter named Karn, that had been recruiting players for a team of their own, and we met up with them just as the sun was setting over our virtual town space.

“You’re a what?”

“Tempest.”

“What the fuck is that?”

The exclamation came from a red haired player, a young looking guy, sitting across from me at the table, and I was about to answer when the man next to me, who appeared to be the leader of the group, spoke up:

“Are you a pro?”

“Uh-”

“We’ve seen at least two hundred rangers so far, but you’re the second tempest we’ve even heard about. So level with me right now. Are you some kind of professional gamer, or are you just some dumb idiot that picked that shit randomly without having a single clue about what it fucking does.”

I rubbed the back of my head, and glanced at Kelly for some backup but she had her arms folded and was quite purposefully ignoring my silent plea for assistance.

“Well…I’m no pro- but I didn’t pick it without reason either,” I sighed, before continuing: “Look, We aren’t asking to join your group without bringing anything to the table. We’ve scouted around the Necromancer’s ruins, and we’ve got some pretty good info to give on it.”

“Oh, is that so?”

The man studied me a bit more, then discussed some things with his group in whispers, before turning his attention to Kelly.

“Is that chick a chick?”

Kelly rolled her eyes, and shot me a ‘are you serious right now’ look before resuming her silent protest.

“Uh, yeah. She’s my sister.”

“And is she any good?”

“How about you test my patience and find out?” she spat in annoyance, and he cracked her a wry smile.

“Sorry- it’s just we’d heard how the game developers were recruiting chicks to keep the male/female ratio balance about even. So no offence, we just need to make sure you don’t outright suck.”

“She’s fine- but we can go on a practice run if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Okay then, we’ll do that. I’m Karn, by the way. The red head is Pete-”

“Warrior, nice to meet ya,”

“-and the quiet one is Ren,” he motioned a little robed figure to Pete’s left, before finishing: “We’ll hit a goblin camp at first light.”

* * *

I was a bit nervous, as this was going to be our first real combat experience, but to my surprise on the practice run, Kelly outright impressed.

It’s not that I doubted her ability, but what I didn’t expect was the sheer tenacity with which she played.

I scanned the area and quickly pointed out all of the existing threats.

I didn’t even use my mark, instead just pointing the targets, but Kelly was on fire; she’d cleared half the camp before Pete even swung his sword for the first blow.

Ren appeared to be a rogue, as she sneaked around striking with her dagger before disappearing into the shadows, and Karn using his various tools and implements as a bounty hunter.

It felt somewhat disappointing to see the entire fight end knowing that I hadn’t so much as struck a single blow, but my allies were pretty impressed with things.

“It takes us thirty minutes to sweep this place making sure no-one’s hiding in ambush,” Karn muttered, in the aftermath of our onslaught, “you cut that down to zero. Color me impressed.”

“So are we in?” I asked, and he nodded with a smile:

“Consider yourselves part of the gang! Just- uh,” he pulled me aside and spoke in a whisper, “keep that chick of yours in check.”

He shot me a quick wink, before heading over to Pete to inspect the spoils of our run.

Split five ways, our loot didn’t amount to much, but it was a relief to have some coin again since I’d spent my entire starting stipend paying for the class switch.

Even at the beginning, such a thing was expensive and it only got worse as you progressed along.

We made plans to meet up the next day, before heading off our separate ways.

“Soo- since when are you such a badass with a bow?” I prodded Kelly with a wry smile.

“I practiced a lot- in the beta test. Like, even when I didn’t need to.”

“No kidding.”

“Yeah- I was kinda hoping you’d be impressed.”

“Come clean- You’re not D-rank, are you,” I asked knowingly, and she blushed.

“B. Sorry.”

I jumped on her and hugged her tight, and she squealed in response.

“You’re awesome, sis.”

“Really? You’re not mad?”

“Hell no. I’m glad! My little sister can take care of herself. I’m living the dream!” I teased.

Truthfully it unsettled me just a little.

I used to be her hero, and part of me always wanted to be the big brother she looked up to:

“You know- just because I can take care of myself doesn’t mean that I don’t need you…” she added, almost as if she’d read my mind.

She blushed a little, before walking ahead, then stopped to look back at me with a shy little smile.

With the wind blowing through her character’s silvery, wispy hair, and the setting sun just shining through the wavering strands, for just a second, her character faded and I saw her; Kelly, my wonderful, amazing little sister, and I remembered just how precious she was.

“I love you, you know,” I muttered the words so softly, I wasn’t sure she’d heard, but she walked up to me and lifted my face to bring my eyes to her own.

They were soft, and wavering in that way they did when she wanted to express something that words never could.

“I love you too, Josh.”

As we set up for camp that night her mood was buoyant.

She made fun of me, and giggled playfully at my jokes while teasing and taunting me.

I was positively beaming.

“You were amazing today,” I reiterated.

“Really, now? Because you only told me, like what, five times already?”

“Fine, I’ll stop.”

“I didn’t say stop,” she added playfully, and I aimed a lunge at her ribs.

“Your Avatar has tickles?” I exclaimed, as she cackled gleefully in my grasp.

“Yes, yes, oh my god stop!” she wriggled about, trying to escape my grasp, before she tripped over one of the tent poles and tumbled, taking me with her to the floor.

She ended up pinned under me, looking up at me and panting as she tried to catch her breath, which drew my attention for just a moment to the way her avatar’s huge breasts heaved with each gasp.

It was just a glance, but she didn’t miss it, and a huge teasing smile appeared on her face.

“What was that?!”

“Nothing-”

“You just checked me out!”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes you did! You checked me out!”

I climbed off of her, then dusted myself off awkwardly as I sat on the bare earth, but she crawled over to me and wrapped her arms about me.

“What’s the matter, Josh? Does your cute little sister get you all hot and bothered?” her voice was teasing and playful, and I must have been blushing like mad.

“Ugh- my cute little sister does not have breasts like those.”

“So, I _am_ cute?!” she exclaimed, pinching my cheeks and poking me all over.

By the time we settled down into our cozy little tent and got ready to sleep, I was happier than I ever thought I could be under such dire circumstances.

Actually… now that I thought about it.

I was happier than I’d been ever since-

*Beep!

I jumped a little as the notification that a call was coming in pinged off, and Kelly glanced at me knowingly.

“What is it?” she asked, just as I saw the message “Receiving call from ‘dumb bitch’” appear in my interface.

“It’s just a call, I’ll be right back,” I mumbled, as I answered the call while slipping out of the tent.

“Heyy,” I answered nervously, trying to block out the worried look on Kelly’s face as she disappeared with the closing of the tent’s flap.

“Uh- hey. Soo… I got notified about the game thing?”

“Oh, you did?”

It suddenly occurred to me that she was still listed as my emergency contact in my medical records.

_Shit._

“So… are you, like- in there now?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Really- cuz… you could never talk to me while you were playing games before. Or was that always just an excuse?”

“This isn’t that kind of game, Trace.”

“Sure,” she muttered sarcastically, before continuing: “you know- I always knew those dumb games would kill you some day.”

“Seriously?”

“You probably should have listened to me when I told you to stop playing so much.”

“I didn’t play a game for, what- like, five years? -before you left.”

“Yeah, sure- yet here you are trapped in one now,” she added, bitterly.

“What is this, Trace? Did you call just to tell me ‘I told you so’ or something?”

“So what? You can call me whenever the fuck you feel like it to ask how I’m doing but I can’t do the same, or..?”

“You hung up when I called, remember? I’m still on the phone with you! Even though I’m still stuck in this messed up crazy-”

“Josh? I-is everything okay?”

I glanced back at the tent, to see Kelly watching me worriedly.

“Who is that?”

“Kelly.”

“As in your sister, Kelly? Or did you just finally just find some bitch with her name?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh nothing- I guess you expect me to still believe that playing video games is all you two did growing up.”

“What the hell-?”

“I’m sure the little whore has been all too eager to take care of you with me gone.”

I laughed, bitterly and exhaustedly.

“This is funny to you?”

“It is- because, apparently you’re the one who can’t live with the fact that you ran off with-”

*click!

A little message saying ‘call ended’ briefly appeared in my character interface, before I swiped it bitterly away.

“Jeez,” I muttered, running my hands through my hair.

“Why’d you even answer?”

I looked back again to see Kelly looking at me, sadly, a little look of disappointment in her eyes, and I averted my gaze, feeling to ashamed to even face her.

I felt a strong impulse to apologize, but I wasn’t even sure why.

Did I really need to explain why I felt the urge to answer her call?

Logic said no, but the feeling that I needed to apologize remained nonetheless.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, and to my surprise a pair of arms wrapped themselves about me, pulling me into her warm body in a comforting embrace.

There were tears in my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them fall.

“You don’t need to apologize to me Josh... I just- I don’t like seeing her hurt you. That’s all.”

She pulled me back into our tent, and curled up into my arms as soon as I lay down.

“Do you want to be alone?” she asked.

Her voice was timid and soft.

“No,” I muttered as I wrapped my arms about her and gave her a gentle squeeze.

Being alone was terrible.

Being with the wrong person was even worse.

But being with my little sister fell nowhere near that category.

I’d never given much thought to the whole thing, but sharing the tent every night since we’d been in the game was both convenient and comforting.

As I cuddled with her, enjoying the feeling of her warmth and the comfort of her presence, I found myself drifting off to a peaceful slumber without even needing to activate my character’s sleep function.

When I woke up the next morning, a quick check on my interface told me it was just before six.

By sleeping without the sleep function I thought I’d have ended up oversleeping, but I guess my chronic insomnia won out instead.

Kelly was still asleep on my chest, and as I gathered my senses it suddenly occurred to me that she was breathing.

Did that mean that she had gone to bed without the sleep function as well?

I wasn’t sure.

I mean technically there was no need for our avatars to even breathe in this virtual space, so I started wondering if our virtual bodies were programmed to breathe, or if this was merely our brains being tricked into compensating for it out of habit.

As I pondered the matter, Kelly shifted a bit in my arms and I brushed a few strands of her silvery white hair out of her face.

Her avatar was quite attractive, but I found myself missing my little sister’s real appearance.

Sometimes it was strange; holding this beautiful stranger in the manner I reserved only for her.

She was so precious and dear to me, I leaned down to plant a little kiss on her forehead, and all of a sudden she jolted awake.

“J-j-just now- what was that!” she had jumped a few feet away from me, and was holding her hands protectively about herself, and I was just staring in shock.

“I- uh, just kissed your forehead. I didn’t know it would, uh-” I rubbed the back of my head, my face reddening with embarrassment as I tried to apologize.

_This game and its stupid glitches!_

The last thing I needed was my baby sister thinking I was some kind of pervert.

God, what if I was? What if this wasn’t a glitch?

Hadn’t Tracey implied something along the same lines when she called?

As Kelly got things ready for our morning meal I found myself avoiding her gaze whenever I could, and keeping to myself as much as possible.

It had made things awkward to say the least, and I felt quite disappointed in myself. As if I’d ruined something sacred that was being shared with me.

I’d barely touched my share of the bread and was still ruminating over the matter when Kelly bridged the silence between us by wrapping herself around me, and embracing me from behind.

“You’re dumb.”

“Wha-?”

She kissed me on the cheek, and a little jolt went up my spine, just like earlier.

“See? Either this game is broken or we both are.”

I glanced over my shoulder and she rubbed her nose affectionately against my neck.

“You just scared me- I mean, caught me off guard. I love you Josh, and you can kiss me _wherever_ you want while I sleep. Okay?”

She gave me a little playful, teasing wink as she stood up, and I sighed contentedly.

“You know, you should really be more careful about what you promise. When you’re sleeping, that busty elvish lass you’re walking around as hardly looks a thing like my little sister. I might be tempted to do more than just kiss!” I reached around her and gave her sizeable breasts a squeeze as I said this, and she yelped in surprise.

My intention was just to tease her, but she became really flustered and tripped over herself as walked over to the camp fire.

She was blushing madly, and every time I looked over at her the redness in her cheeks seemed to re-emerge.

 _Maybe you shouldn’t tease me if you can’t handle being teased_ , I thought to myself with a chuckle, as I once again caught my sister’s eyes lingering on me distractedly.

Despite blundering around for a bit, we managed to get through our morning preparations before heading off to meet up with our new party-mates as we’d agreed.

Today we had planned to start doing some serious adventuring.

Our first mission wasn’t really anything outlandish.

Through our scouting, Kelly and I were able to map out all of the inhabited zones around the necromancer’s ruins, a group of decrepit stone structures that were scattered around a valley less than half a day away from our starting town.

Very few adventurer’s had ventured here because of the rumors that a necromancer still inhabited a lair somewhere around.

Rumors were thus far one of the primary functions of the regular NPCs that could be found around town, which was a pretty typical use for such characters in role-playing games. Unlike typical games, however, these NPCs could actively interact with you, rather than simply repeat single lines over and over.

It made them seem eerily lifelike, however their seemingly intelligent design did have its limits; several NPCs seemed to speak in a fairly similar fashion, and conversation with them always seemed to be cut short since they were ‘on their way to do something’ whenever interrupted by a player character.

Despite the rumors however, Kelly and I were able to determine through our scouting that the necromancer was not in fact around, but though this fact was in itself useful to an adventuring group, it was not the most useful piece of info that we’d managed to obtain.

“How far is it?”

“To the lair? Maybe, two miles? The problem is the goblins camped out around the ruins.”

The really useful discovery Kelly and I had made was that of the necromancer’s lair.

Almost definitely stuffed with treasure, we were able to get a scan off close enough for me to find out that the necromancer wasn’t there, but there were three formidable looking goblins scattered inside, with several camps of smaller goblins, like the ones we’d killed the day before scattered around.

They were close enough that we couldn’t start the fight without attracting the attention of all of the groups at one, which could become troublesome, and quick, if they closed the gap on us before we could take enough of them out.

When we first started out Kelly could only shoot about ten arrows or so, before she’d start getting fatigued, affecting the rate at which, and distance that she could shoot. That number had since increased to about twenty.

The same thing applied to my radar spell.

After casting it once I would feel physically weaker, and be unable to use it again without resting.

But now I was able to cast it at least three times before suffering the really stressful effects of using it.

Our plan was to take out some of the encampments scattered around the valley on the first day, then camp for the night before tackling the lair in one go.

Everything went well.

We took out three camps in one go with the aid of my radar spell, then rested a few more times as we hit a couple more.

There were a few more to hit tomorrow morning, and we’d have a short rest around noon before taking on the lair after lunch.

When we set up camp, Ren offered to share a tent with Kelly, and to my surprise she refused.

“Girl or not, I don’t trust _anyone_ ,” she muttered to me as I studied her curiously.

Pete and Ren both shot us a few weird glances as we got into our tent though, making me feel a little bit uncomfortable. But when I tried to bring this up with Kelly, she only seemed annoyed by it.

“So what? You have a problem sleeping with me? We’ve done it since we were kids- even recently. What’s the deal?”

I couldn’t really argue with her points, so I relented and we went to bed as usual.

The next morning, everything went according to plan again as we tackled the smaller camps and pretty soon it was time for the final show.

The plan was to get past the outer camps and make our way to the ruins, which was cleverly hidden under a pretty large hill that stood out amongst the ruins. Inside the mound were rooms and corridors which appeared to have been buried under a great mound of earth.

While Karn, Pete and Ren would make their way to the entrance, Kelly and I would go to the top of the hill, and if the outer camps were alerted at any point to the presence of intruders, we would try to take them out before they could make their way into the lair.

“Okay, is everyone in place?” Karn spoke to us through the communication function that was available through our interface.

I had to admit, as a gamer who had been out of the loop for a while, the efficiency with which teams could communicate was a much welcome improvement.

“Yup- scanning now. Okay, first one is two rooms down on the left from the first corridor. The other two are in opposite rooms on the other side.”

“Gotcha. Going in- keep us up to date.”

Kelly notched an arrow in her bow, and not a moment too soon as a shrill cry tore through the silence, echoing across the valley.

“Maybe I should invest in a bow,” I muttered, as Kelly began firing arrows, taking down the goblins one by one, as they rushed to the ruins.

Her first seven or eight hits were all kills, but firing repeatedly like that quickly sapped away her stamina, and it soon took her two sometimes three hits to take down a goblin.

“Hits are slowing them down,” I noted, and Kelly immediately adjusted, alternating her hits to the goblins who were closest to the ruins.

“Watch my Five ‘o’ clock. Then two coming up the ramp to the left.”

My radar had thankfully picked most of the goblins up, affording me a mostly three sixty degree view of the oncoming horde.

“One big guy down,” Karn muttered, “where are-?”

“Shit, one is almost on you- it’s coming down the corridor now. The other might be coming outside, I’m not sure. Kelly-”

They were getting closer and we needed kills.

Instead of calling the shots, I started marking the targets who were immediate threats, and tapping her shoulder, and she took them each out in one hit.

“Filthy humans! Yarhhhh!”

The terrifying voice came from somewhere behind us, and I stared at the imposing figure, clad in some heavy but battered armor, clambering towards us with an axe.

“Shit,” I drew my dagger as he charged, marking one more target before dashing to the far end of the crag on which we stood.

“Josh?”

She never stopped firing, and I needed her to keep it up.

“I’ve got it, just keep going! Over here, you green sack of sh-”

“Yarrrrgghhhhhh!” he yelled as he charged, his axe ready and swinging.

It was probably stupid to try such an obvious trick, but I tried to leap out of the way as the ogre sized beast came within striking reach, and he grabbed me by the ankle as he teetered to the edge of the crag.

“Josh, we got the second one! Jus’ hold on, we’re-”

“Uh- ahh!” I cried out despite myself as I fell from atop the steep drop alongside the green armor clad brute.

 _This must be it_ , I thought, as everything seemed to slow to an almost still.

I heard Kelly scream out my name over panicked shouts from the rest of my team that came through my interface. I felt the wind blowing past my face, and the grip of the larger goblin still clinging to my feet.

But as I fell seemingly in slow motion, past a ledge that extended from the ruins, I noticed to my surprise a strange hooded figure whose hands were glowing green, and mouthing words that I could not make out.

When I landed with a thud, it took me several moments to understand that the impact had not, as I had expected, damaged me, despite killing the larger goblin who had fallen with me.

I had little time to marvel the miracle, however, as two goblins were on me in a heartbeat.

I quickly marked the first, and sank my dagger into his neck, and as the second lifted his sword to swing it down at my wide open body, an arrow struck him in the chest, and I used the opportunity to quickly stab him.

I looked back at a panic stricken Kelly, and gave her a little thankful nod as she resumed her work in cleaning up the rest of the goblins.

Karn and Pete were out in a moment, and with their aid we dispatched the rest of the force while Ren joined Kelly in her ranged onslaught.

When the last goblin finally fell, everyone erupted into a victorious cheer.

“Holy shit dude, how are you not dead?” Pete asked.

“I actually have no idea.”

Pete’s comment however made me remember the mysterious figure who’d stood on the ledge.

_Shit._

Maybe this isn’t over just yet.

I pulled Karn aside and let him know what I saw.

“You’re certain it was real?”

I nodded.

“Had to be a player. So we should be careful.”

“Alright. Guys, cut the shit- let’s get a move on securing the hoard!”

Ren met up with Pete and Karn and the three headed for the treasure room, which they’d managed to locate while they were in the lair, and I headed up over to where Kelly was.

She dove into my chest when she saw me, sobbing and berating me all at once.

“You could’ve died- fall damage from that distance! What were you thinking?”

“Looks like I need to learn how to fight, huh,” I commented jokingly, but she was not impressed with my humor.

I hugged her tight and held her close, and it wasn’t long before she calmed down enough to crack a little relieved smile at me.

I wasted no time in telling her about the strange figure I saw, so we decided to go look for that ledge from the inside of the lair and see if we could find any clues about who it was, and what they wanted.

When we finally got to the ledge, as expected, the person wasn’t still around.

“Think I should try a scan?”

“Hmm. We don’t have any more fights planned, so sure. Why not?” Kelly responded.

I concentrated on the spell and placed my hand to the floor as the blue glow appeared, and the pulse revealed nothing more, except for a strange simmering white presence that I had not previously noticed in the room where my scan revealed our three comrades were now standing.

_What was that?_

“Holy shit guys, this necklace is probably worth a fortune!” Pete’s voice came over the chat channel.

“Easy Pete, how are we looking on traps Ren?”

“It looks clear, but you might wanna stand back when I snag the necklace just in case.”

“Jesus, the diamonds on this thing are shimmering white.”

_Wait- shimmering white diamonds. In a necromancer’s lair? Shit!_

I shot Kelly a quick glance then tore off after the chamber they were in.

“Guys don’t touch it, it’s a-”

“What the fuck?!”

Kelly and I got into the room just in time to see a brilliant white flash emanate from the light before Ren’s body began to disintegrate into a million little balls of white light.

“Ren!” Pete cried out, but as he dived into the spot where she stood, a final flash shot out of the necklace before an intimidating figure appeared in her stead.

It had a skeleton for a face, and stood about seven feet tall, holding a giant staff with a skull on its head in its left hand.

Pete collided headfirst with the thing, and out of reflex I marked it just as Pete swung his sword at the monster’s feet.

But the sword merely bounced off of his feet with a dull thud, and Pete rolled away as Karn fired a grappling hook at the creature’s staff which wrapped around it, then anchored the hook to a notch on the wall.

Kelly fired an arrow, but the creature was now fully formed and aware, and with a swing of the hand it swatted the arrow out of the air like a mere fly.

“Shit,” Karn muttered, and as he made a dash for the entrance where we stood, but the monster lifted its right hand which glowed with that tell-tale blue aura, and an icy spike shot out of it, just missing Karn and keeping him from crossing the room.

We needed to escape, and quick.

Pete’s sword had barely scratched it and Kelly’s shot didn’t even land.

The monster turned on Pete, but as it seemed poised to strike, a brilliant flash of light appeared from behind him as a hooded figure in white robes; the one who I’d seen as I was falling, walked through the door on the opposite side of the chamber.

The room was quickly illuminated, and sword-shaped lights began to form in a circle around the creature who seemed frozen in its midst.

“Run, you jackasses!” Her voice revealed that the figure was a woman, and Karn and Pete quickly snapped out of their trance, dashing for the exit behind her while Kelly and I escaped the way we came.

We ran without looking back or stopping, and eventually met back up with the rest of the group, plus the robed woman, outside of the ruins.

At her urging, we continued to hastily retreat from the ruins, until Pete stopped us:

“Guys! What about Ren?”

Everyone exchanged nervous glances, as we paused to catch our virtual breaths.

It didn’t burn the lungs the way it would if I ran like this with my soda and chips ridden body, but I could feel my stamina building back up as I took deep breaths at the pause.

“We have to go back-”

“Pete-” Karn started, but our unknown guest cut him off:

“She’s dead. There’s nothing to go back for.”

“W-what? S-she can’t be. All she did was touch some stupid necklace… s-she’s still- back there somewhere, right?”

I shot Kelly a worried glance, and sure enough she was tearing up a bit.

“I’m going back- we can’t leave all that treasure. Ren- Ren earned that with us. She’s waiting there for us to come get it, right? When that monster disappears, Ren will come back- won’t she?”

“Pete, I’m sorry…” Karn muttered.

Pete looked at us, hopelessly.

“Stop looking like that! Stop looking so sad. She’s not! She’s not dead, she’s just waiting for us- hey, let’s just kill that thing. Ren will come back, let’s just-”

“It’s useless,” the hooded woman replied. “Your friend was consumed by that thing- and you all couldn’t kill it even if you tried. It’s a lich.”

“No way- who would put a lich in a low level dungeon…” he replied.

“This isn’t that kind of game, kid…” the woman muttered.

She seemed a bit less harsh now, but the reality was only just sinking in for Pete.

“Bullshit! This is complete fucking bullshit!”

“Pete, we need to-” I started.

“No, fuck you. This is your fault! You brought us here. You killed Ren!” His sword was drawn and he was advancing on me, and in a flash Kelly had her dagger out and was standing in front of me.

But I put a hand on her shoulder, and with my other hand, I lowered her blade.

_He’s not dangerous, just hurt…_

His sword clattered to the ground as he put his hands over his face, tears falling as he sobbed.

Despite the somber mood, we eventually had to move as sunset was quickly approaching.

Thanks to my mark we were able to keep an eye on the lich from afar, and loot the goblin camps around the lair. There was probably some stuff inside of the lair that we could get to without disturbing the lich, but after Ren’s death no one was particularly eager to tempt fate.

The combined wealth we made from the outing was still considerably good, but at the cost of Ren’s life it left us with a bitter aftertaste, and no one could smile much less celebrate.

The robed woman was a priestess named Serra.

She was a solo player and a bit of a loner, so she didn’t reveal much else about herself despite continuing to accompany us in the aftermath of our ordeal.

As we retreated from the valley in search of a safer place to make camp, Pete was pretty silent even though Karn tried his best to indulge him, and Kelly and I tried to keep our distance since he’d already lashed out at us once already.

“That was a phylactery, wasn’t it?” I asked Serra, as we trudged on through the hills.

“Oh? So you’re the brains in this little gang, huh?”

Almost everything that came out of this girl’s mouth had a hint of sarcasm to it, even though she didn’t seem ill natured.

“I think I owe you a thank you,” I muttered quietly to Serra, even though I knew Kelly was trying her hardest to listen in.

“Is that so?”

“Feather fall, wasn’t it?” I replayed the words she mouthed over and over in my mind, trying to think of all of the various spells from popular RPGs that I was aware of.

Feather fall was a spell which when cast on a falling object or target, slowed their fall speed allowing them to escape the possible deadly damage that came from a fall from height.

She nodded.

“So you caught that, huh? You’re pretty sharp,” she added, and I was taken aback by what sounded oddly like a genuine, if uncharacteristic compliment.

Kelly shot me a sharp look, then stalked ahead a bit.

“If you keep whispering to me, your girlfriend is going to get jealous,” Serra whispered, and I looked away with a hint of a blush.

“That’s not it,” I responded a little defensively. “She’s my sister- and she’s just pissed at me for almost dying.”

We ended up setting up camp in a remote little nook in a hilly stretch, some way away from the necromancer’s lair.

Having walked for a bit into the night, it was late and everyone was pretty beat by the time we started setting up, so everyone ate quickly before retiring into their respective tents for the night.

Although Serra didn’t offer to share a tent with Kelly, Pete shot us a nasty look as we went off to bed, and he mouthed something that looked like ‘fuckin’ weirdos’ in our direction before retiring to his and Karn’s tent.

Kelly had been mostly quiet all evening, but as we got ready for bed, she spoke up:

“Hey- I know we slept without the sleep function yesterday, so I thought you’d want to know that there’s a way to put on a wake up alarm without activating the sleep function. Here, let me show you.”

I followed her instructions and found that it was possible to set a daily alarm, and there were a few other options.

“It was different,” she muttered, “sleeping without the sleep function. It was like I could feel your presence there, next to me, all night while I slept. It was- comforting,” she added, as she cozied up in my arms resting her head on my chest.

“You almost died today,” she muttered timidly.

“Yeah- I’m sorry. I did something pretty stupid, huh.”

“That girl saved you, didn’t she?” She looked up into my eyes, and I gave a little nod.

“It’s so easy to die- all Ren did was touch that thing, and that was it…” she continued.

“We just need to be careful. Maybe go for easier fights. We made a lot off of the goblin camps.”

“I love you, Josh. I don’t want to die without telling you how much-”

“Easy, Kel. I love you too, and no one is dying, okay? We’ll be more careful…”

Kelly looked like she was on the verge of saying something very difficult, but eventually changed her mind, nestling back into her spot in my arms.

I was about to settle in to sleep, when I caught her looking up at me again with that look in her eyes, as if there was something she just couldn’t sleep without getting off of her chest.

I was about to ask her what was up, when she quickly brought her face up to mines, and kissed me, a quick peck on the cheek.

She blushed a little, as if the move had embarrassed her, so I returned the favor and gave her a little peck of my own on her cute little blushing cheek.

But as I withdrew, I noticed something different about her eyes.

Her breathing was tense, and her fists were balled tight; and if I didn’t know better I would have thought that-

My heart thumped in my chest, and I froze, as Kelly leaned into me, closing her eyes as she pressed her lips to mine for just a second.

Her eyes fluttered open and she held my gaze for just a second more, before quickly withdrawing back into her little nook in my arms.

“Good night, Josh,” she muttered shyly, and I was worried that she might hear my heart beat through my chest as it thumped away nervously.

I lifted my hand to my face, and with two fingers trailed the spot where Kelly’s lips had pressed against me, and as I drifted off to sleep I found myself absently reliving the sensation over and over again.

Now I’m not going to pretend that I’ve been ignorant of my sister’s infatuation with me.

Ever since we were kids, Kelly practically idolized me, and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t relish in her doting and adoration back then. But she was much older now, and I’m certain she wasn’t still blind to my extensive list of failures and faults.

I wasn’t sure if she was going to pursue it, but I silently resolved to let her down easy if it came to that.

When we woke up the next morning, Kelly was skittish as I’d expected; whenever she was idle I could almost sense her eyes on me, and every time I caught her gaze she would quickly look away with a little blush.

Things with Pete were still tense.

He trudged about with a vacant look on his face, and even Karn seemed on edge.

Serra kept more or less to herself as usual, but as we set out for town I began to wonder what the fate of our group would be once we returned.

As things stood, it seemed to be best if we went our separate ways, so Kelly and I would probably have to set out looking for a new team.

I wondered silently if Serra would be interested in joining us.

A priest was a pretty solid addition to any group, though our party’s makeup was one that worked reasonably well without it.

We were almost back to the starting town when Karn finally started questioning her a bit:

“So, what were you doing at those ruins?” Karn asked.

“Investigating,” she muttered, with an absent looking smile.

Karn shot me a confused look, and I shrugged, as she didn’t even bother elaborating.

“Are you with another group?” Kelly asked, and she shook her head before giving a tired sigh:

“Look- spare me the inquisition. I’m not trying to take your share of the loot or anything- I just wanna do what I came here to do, which is play!”

Pete’s fists were clenched, and if Serra noticed she didn’t say a thing about it.

“Would you like to join up with us?” Karn asked, but she shook her head.

“You kidding? I play alone. You all would never keep up. Although- I do have need for someone with a certain range of skills…” she glanced suggestively in my direction to my surprise.

“Huh?”

“I know you have no clue how to really use that class- but I could teach you. You have the aptitude for it. I can tell.”

“And that’s based on… what exactly?” Kelly asked sarcastically.

“Call it- a woman’s intuition,” she replied, giving Kelly a little wink.

“So what are you proposing then?” I asked, trying to keep Kelly from taking the bait.

“Its simple- join me. You probably won’t ever die, and unlike everyone else around here you just might enjoy playing the best fucking game ever made.”

“You’re s-rank, aren’t you?” Karn muttered.

“Hey now, you can’t just go around asking a girl such intimate questions!”

She advanced on me now as she spoke:

“So- how about it? Your skillset is crap, but I don’t mind paying up to re-assign your skill points. In two weeks’ time they’ll be talking about us at every inn, lodge and tavern in this continent! Come with me- and I promise you. You’ll experience living like you’ve probably never fucking lived before!”

I almost tripped, retreating backwards away from her, until I bumped into Kelly.

“Sorry, I can’t leave my-”

“He’ll get back to you,” Kelly muttered, to my shock.

“Eh? Well don’t take too long. When I leave this town tomorrow you probably won’t see me again. Bye now!”

Karn studied her as she headed off.

“She didn’t even ask for a split of the loot.”

“Why would she?” Pete asked angrily.

“Because- if she didn’t suspend that lich we would be corpses in that lair right now,” Karn replied with a sigh.

We started splitting up the loot, when Pete muttered something about it feeling wrong to use money made off of Ren’s life, and stalked off.

I asked Karn to hold onto his share as well as Ren’s, before parting ways with him.

Kelly’s eyes were on me again, but this time, they were filled with worry.

After everything that had happened over the last few days, we decided it would be best to take the rest of the day off to relax, so I suggested that we visit the little village where I started out.

We made the trip in about twenty minutes.

It was completely deserted and we had the place to ourselves, so we found a nice little spot by the edge of village, on a hill overlooking a gentle stream and a rustic looking wooden bridge.

It made for quite the scene; the sun was peeking out over the hills, bathing it in a warm, orange glow, and the wind was just gently blowing across the hill face, making little ripples in the gently flowing pool below us, and giving the branches of the nearby trees a subtle yet steady hypnotic sway.

“I think you should team up with Serra.”

We had barely even settled down when Kelly uttered these words bluntly, before continuing: “I know her- she’s not just an S-rank player, she’s top ten. She’s a league of legends player from Europe- when the game was in the beta test, they made it a priority to get her signed up to play.”

“Then she’s out of our league anyway.”

“Doesn’t matter, besides it’s you she wants. You adapt quickly- she saw that, and I think this might be a really good thing for you.”

I blinked twice as I studied her for some indication that maybe I was missing the context of what she’d said. My first instinct after all was maybe this was a joke, or a test.

But she was as serious as I’d ever seen her in my life, so I gazed out at the stream pondering the statement.

“Weren’t you making me promise not to leave you just the other day? Where is this coming from?”

Her eyes were suddenly watery, and she looked at me directly for the first time since we’d settled down on the scenic hillside.

“You already broke that promise, Josh.”

I blinked at her, the confusion in my eyes surely apparent.

“I’m still-”

“You smiled- when that goblin grabbed you by the ankle and pulled you from that ledge… I was more scared than I’d ever been in my life, but as I looked over at you, just as you went over- you smiled…”

“Kelly, you can’t not serious. You’re just over-thinking things.”

She shook her head, a tear running down her cheek now.

“How long now have you been thinking about killing yourself?”

The words weighed heavily in the air.

I’m not sure I could feel more ashamed of myself, even if I tried.

Kelly was the last person I wanted to disappoint, but I had the feeling I wouldn’t be able to pacify her with a lie this time.

“I’m not sure… it isn’t something I actively think about.”

She gulped, then nodded.

“You love me, don’t you Josh?”

“Of course! Why would you even ask that?”

“Because being around me hasn’t helped you heal- and I don’t know how I feel about that…”

Her tears ran down her cheek, and she wiped them away with a little smile.

I wanted to go to her, but for some reason I couldn’t.

I looked down for a while, before Kelly wiped her tears away again, before creeping over to my side.

She lifted my face to meet hers, her watery eyes flickering between my own eyes, and my lips.

Her lips quivered a little, before she leaned in, eyes closed, pressing her lips to mine.

I felt her hands searching for mine, and she intertwined her fingers with mine, giving them a little squeeze as she continued to press her lips into me, kissing me deeply.

She opened her eyes as she broke the kiss to climb over and onto me, but I was having trouble keeping my heart from exploding in my chest.

“Kelly, I don’t think we should-”

She put a finger to my lips, cutting me off.

“Josh- just indulge me? Just this once?”

I was speechless.

There was no telling my sister no, and as she leaned in to kiss me again I returned the kiss, slowly but surely matching her intensity and fervor.

Her lips were soft and warm, and as I closed my eyes she was no longer that avatar that was a stranger to my eyes, but the beautiful little sister that I knew and loved.

I relished in the feel of her lips against me, and little moans were escaping her lips as they parted to mash against me, each time returning with renewed intensity.

My hands wrapped around her almost instinctively, pulling her closer and exploring the curves and shape of her virtual body.

It was delightful- her impeccable shape and form almost demanded the sensuousness of my touch, and Kelly was squirming delightfully in my arms, her nails dragging subtle scrapes across my back and neck as she lost herself in the intensity of our passionate play.

When we finally paused, Kelly panted into my neck, the warm puffs of breath delighting me as much as the kisses that she placed intermittently as she nuzzled me.

My worry over the seriousness of the matter we discussed began to fade, and despite my inhibitions over sharing such intimacy with my little sister, I was beginning to feel somewhat at ease.

Kelly got off of me, her mood suddenly seeming playful and relaxed.

“Come on, I wanna go stand on the bridge!”

She took my hand and led me at a half-run to the bridge, in that childlike excited way that she did when she was still a kid.

It was one of her truly endearing qualities.

“Hey, do you remember that weekend after you graduated from high school, when we went camping with Aunt Carol and Uncle Jeff?”

“How can I forget- it was the first family vacation that I brought you know who along.”

“When we went on that hike and she saw that rope bridge she went colder than ice,” she giggled, before continuing: “I was scared too, but when I took your hand and ran across the bridge, I felt- invincible! I remember leaning back against the rope looking over my head and shouting, ‘catch me Joshie, I’m falling, catch me!’” she leaned back now, and just as I did then I put my arms around her and held her, as she looked, upside down at the water as it gurgled under the bridge.

She wasn’t falling, then or now, but when I held her she knew she was safe.

“Tracey was so mad,” Kelly muttered with a giggle, as if retroactively pleased with what she had done.

Our bodies were pressed together, as I held her by the waist, keeping her firmly and securely against me.

Sure, back then I didn’t think much of it, but it must have looked like quite the intimate embrace.

“I know- we were just having fun, but trust the ‘queen of the universe’ to think we were doing it just to piss her off. You were what, fourteen?”

“She yelled at you so much that night-”

“Oh, I remember- worst four hours I had to sit through in my life. She yelled until, like one am?”

“Yup- I remember that,” Kelly muttered timidly, and I studied her with surprise. I knew Kelly spied on me from time to time, but I didn’t think she would have stuck around for that tirade.

“What? You think I’d let you sit through that alone? You’re just lucky I didn’t come in and smack her in the head.”

I smiled, thinking this was just like her. If she felt responsible in any way she would have accepted any punishment alongside me.

Come to think of it, if Kelly had ever in her life been jealous, she never once showed it.

She was such a precious girl, I almost wished I could deserve her…

“What’re you thinking about?” she asked, studying me curiously.

“Just wondering what I did to deserve a wonderful sister like you.”

“Oh, going for flattery are we? I almost wish I could believe you, but I know when you’re thinking something stupid.”

I rubbed the back of my head, but she didn’t even stop to press me.

She leaped into my arms, and I lifted her through the air, spinning her around a bit, and she giggled in that precious, girly way that she did whenever we played around like that.

I lifted her up, before allowing her to fall back into my arms.

“When I got my driver’s license, you lifted me up like that in front of everyone- I was really happy that day,” Kelly said, softly.

“I was proud of you. I wanted everyone to know that.”

“Tracey was pretty mad at you that day too, wasn’t she?”

“Yup.”

“Did you ever hate me for it? Getting her mad at you like that all the time?”

“Fuck no. Tracey could get mad at me for anything, Kel. If it wasn’t you, it would have just been something else.”

“Can I tell you something?”

“What?”

“I did things on purpose to get her mad.”

She looked anxious at the admission, but I merely smiled, which turned into a laugh.

“I’m still not mad. You’re my little sister. You’ll always come first, so if you wanna do that you can. If she couldn’t handle it then that was her problem.

Kelly blushed, then leaned in to me, rubbing her nose against mine.

“Make love to me tonight, Josh.”

I looked into her eyes, which were positively fluttering with life.

When those eyes came asking, there was nothing I could deny them, but this was one tall order.

I pondered the question for some time.

As Kelly and I ate dinner that evening and set up our camp atop that hill for the night, the mood went from playful to purely anxious.

Could we really do this?

I knew from my reading that it was all too possible from a mechanical perspective, as our characters were equipped with all of the necessary equipment, and if our other interactions were anything to go by, it would feel every bit as real as actual sex.

The question was rather a moral one.

Could our relationship handle making the step to physical intimacy?

Kelly and I had been comfortable with each other for as long as I could remember.

The first time she crawled into my bed, we cuddled almost automatically, and it never felt awkward or in any way strange.

Sure- I loved her, and I was all too aware of her love for me.

But Kelly deserved much better in life than what I had to offer.

This was why I had resolved to turn her down, but directness with which she had made the request had thrown me off just a bit.

Maybe there was a reason she was craving this intimacy right now.

I almost died today, and maybe Kelly was now thinking that death could be a reality for her as well.

There was certainly more to the request than I understood, but as we crawled into our tent that night and her lips once again found mines, I found my trepidation quickly dissipating like the afternoon mist.

“Kelly- are you sure you want this?”

“I’ve been sure for longer than you’d care to know- trust me.”

She removed her character’s armor, leaving only some very immodest undergarments, and waited on me to do the same.

“I’ve put off asking for way too long- I let that fucking whore steal your first time away from me, but I’m not dying without knowing how it’d feel. I know I’m being selfish right now, but you’ll indulge me- won’t you?”

She climbed onto me, and began to plant kisses along my neck, and all along my chest.

“I wish I could have done this to your body, Josh- right here, the scar you got when I rode my bike off of the terrace above the garage, and you tried to catch it,” she kissed it tenderly, and looked back up at me: “You’d try to stop the world from spinning if I was in trouble.”

I could feel that unsettling feeling rise up in my chest again; something just felt off, but Kelly was determined to melt my resistance away with her kisses; each kiss was a soft, deliberate, affirmation of her resolve, and I soon found myself in complete surrender to the force of her will.

There was a curious yearning desire emanating from my sister, and I understood that she needed this.

I brought her lips to mine, and kissed them with all of the love and affection that I harbored for her.

If this was her desire, then I would meet it with everything that I could muster.

I kissed her, matching her tenacity with a resolve of my own, eventually easing her onto her back, and trailing kisses past her chest, to her stomach, moving deliberately to the place that was practically dripping wet with desire.

I slipped the underwear from her waist, getting it down her leg just enough that I could slip my head into place.

Trapped between her still attached underwear and her sopping wet mound, I licked and sucked at it eagerly. The tastes of her artificial body were sweet, but lacked the raw tangy flavor of a woman’s pussy.

But the detail didn’t faze me one bit, as Kelly was moaning ecstatically and grinding herself into my reverent lips.

“Joshie- eat me, lick me. I’ve wanted your tongue in me for so long. Suck my cunt- mnh!”

She egged me on and I sucked and licked her sopping wet mound dutifully, until she moaned and screamed, squirting her juices into my mouth as she climaxed.

“Wow,” she muttered, as she relaxed under my grip, panting and sweating from the exhilaration.

“Since when do we even sweat?” I muttered ponderously, running my finger along the light sheen of sweat that had formed on her naked skin.

“I dunno- they must have coded it in for the added effect, maybe?” Kelly replied.

I leaned down to her abdomen, and licked the perspiration from her silky smooth skin for a little taste.

_Just as I thought- it was sweet almost, and nothing like the taste of a real woman._

I looked into Kelly’s eyes, and suddenly the thought occurred to me.

I wanted to taste her- her real body; every bit of it. I wanted to know her scents, her tastes, and the way she’d feel.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I think I like that look in your eyes,” Kelly muttered appreciatively, and she pulled me onto her, bringing my lips to hers as she fished my fully erect member from the linen wraps I wore.

“Those are pretty convenient,” she added with a smirk, “remind me to get you some of those to wear when we get out of this place.”

She kissed me as she massaged the head of my engorged cock between her thumb and index fingers, before leaning down to give me a kiss.

“Wow- are you this huge too, or-”

“Sorry, sis. Average at best.”

“Eh- I’ll live. This thing looks like it’d kill me in real life anyway.”

She engulfed me into her lips, and to my surprise, took my entire ridiculous length in one go.

My cock slipped from her mouth with an obscene ‘pop’, and she grinned:

“No gag reflex!”

“Now that’s some programming choices I can respect!”

She took the opportunity to deep throat me, taking me into her mouth and inhaling me to the base of my cock again and again, and I grabbed her head, thrusting my length into her a few times, taking the virtually enhanced experience to its full advantage.

“Wow- I kind of like that,” Kelly muttered, “think I could learn to do that in real life?”

“With practice- lots, and lots, and lots of practice.”

“Touché,” she replied with a wink, before resuming her oral worship of my dick.

She took my full length into her mouth, and the tight feeling of being buried deep in her throat coupled with the insanely erotic visual of my sister’s cutely designed character face taking my cock into her mouth right down to the hilt, pushed me over the edge, and I spewed rope after rope of thick semen deep into her throat.

She swallowed it, while sucking on me wantonly, and it took much longer than usual for the high of my climax to subside.

“Wow sis,” I muttered, “that was some amazing cock sucking,” and she smiled at me happily.

“You know, little sisters shouldn’t be quite so pleased to hear such depraved compliments from their older brothers.”

“What can I say? I live to please!” she replied with another naughty wink.

She climbed on top of me now, positioning the head of my cock at her already sopping wet slit.

“I wish I could feel this for real- mnh,” she moaned, as she slowly sank the length of my cock into her sopping wet pussy.

She slid along my length just a few times, reveling in the sensation of our virtual bodies combining:

“Oh god, Josh- I’ve been fantasizing about this for so long.”

I reached up under the cotton-like fabric that just barely concealed her virtually enhanced breasts, and massaged them as she rode me, slowly but lasciviously.

Sitting up, I placed a hand on her back, and guided her rocking motions on top of me, helping her find a smooth and steady rhythm with which to ride my eager, rigid cock.

Her movements were deliberate but slow, and when I leaned into her face, my lips searching out hers, we were in complete sync, our lips mashing pleasurably with each rhythmic thrust.

Our love making was sensuous and deliberate, and as Kelly quickened her pace, her urgency winning out against her desire to remain coupled like this for eternity, we quickened our intensity towards a mutual, impending orgasm.

Her nails dug into me and her body was pressed into mine with the closeness of two halves seeking to encapsulate into what once was whole, and when I came into her, she moaned into my mouth, eagerly engrossed with my lips as she orgasmed again, this time around the pulsing eruptions of cum from my cock.

I spewed my love juices into her, and her pussy muscles contracted, urging my seed deep inside her womb as she simultaneously rode out her own orgasm out against me.

As we came down from the intensity of our love making, Kelly collapsed into me and we just lay there, panting, and holding each other and reveling in the immense feeling of satisfaction.

“That was-”

“-amazing,” I finished her sentence, as she panted.

She extricated herself from me, before carefully examining the remnants of our frenzied copulation with a curiously endearing expression of triumph, and I patted her on the head affectionately.

But as she snuggled up against me that night, I felt that unsettling feeling re-appear.

There was something off, I was sure; but I did my best nonetheless to dismiss it as we drifted off to sleep.

* * *

I woke up with a start, a curious chill running though me.

A strange feeling of coldness seemed to fill the air around me, and I reached over to find the space in my arms reserved for Kelly, oddly and unsettlingly empty.

Sitting up revealed that the tent was in fact, save for myself, empty.

Where was she?

Even when she woke up before I did, she would lie by my side, watching over me with that precious, affectionate smile, just waiting to greet me.

My chest tightened, anxiety beginning to grip my heart.

I emerged from our tent in a panicked rush: “Kelly?”

Through the blinding rays of the early morning sun, I saw her shape, sitting upon an old stump just outside our tent.

I shielded my eyes from the blinding light, thinking:

_Oh thank God, Kelly. I thought you’d-_

“Well well, it _is_ you,” the girl muttered playfully.

My stomach clenched as the voice, though familiar, was not that of my sister’s.

As the shadowy branches of the tree above swayed back and forth over her illuminated form, I recognized the shape of a girl, her auburn hair shining in the sun, and dressed in priest’s robes, looking up at me with a mischievous smile.

“She did say this is where you would be, after all.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh is forced to raise his 'game' to a whole new level.

**_***_ **

“Serra?” I asked.

She had such a distinctive look; that brilliant red hair that she wore in twin ponytails, and the way that they bounced playfully as she swayed with the wind under the early morning sun.

“In the flesh!” she quipped with a smile.

I looked around.

Where was Kelly, and what was Serra doing here?

“Still not getting it huh, _big_ _brother_?”

The playfulness in her voice was starting to tick me off.

“Where is my sister?”

She threw her hands up in a show of exasperation:

“I give up! You’re beyond help!”

She was still smiling coyly when I advanced on her: “This is your doing, isn’t it? What did you do? What did you say to her?”

I grabbed her by the hem of her robes, but her smile did not falter in the least.

“Now now, at least take responsibility for your own mistakes- ‘little sis’ left on her own… or did ‘big bro’ do something stupid?” she added with a knowing wink.

I let her up, and she frowned:

“Aww… done playing big bad wolf already? I was just starting to enjoy that. Although… there’ll be plenty of time for that kind of play...” she blew me a kiss, and I looked away miserably.

Kelly was gone…

What the hell did this mean?

I pulled up my character interface, and sure enough a message awaited me:

**Dear Josh,  
I know you’re probably mad and kind of hating me right now, but please know that that was not my intention when I made up my mind to leave. I know you’ve been pretty miserable for some time now, and I know that somewhere along the way you stopped loving yourself… and I thought I could help you, I really did… I thought that maybe if I loved you enough you would be yourself again- the happy, easy going, fun loving big brother that I fell in love with all those years ago. Being around you made me the person that I am today, and being loved by you made me happier than I ever thought I could be. But when I almost lost you, I realized… that’s not enough for me! I can’t be happy until I see you genuinely smile again. I can’t be happy until this sickness in your heart is no longer weighing you down, and tearing you apart. I want to see you live again Josh, not just for my sake or anyone or anything else, but for yourself… It hurt me to know that walking away from you would hurt you… especially knowing how vulnerable you are right now… but if there’s a chance that you can find that _something_ you’ve been missing… that something in yourself, to love, hope and live again. Then I’ll take that risk. I know you must think I’m crazy for trusting you with this girl, and maybe- I probably am. But she’s a top player, and she’s given me her word that you’ll be alright. Just please remember Josh… I love you. Please… don’t give up like that again. Just… do your best and stay alive, so that when we get out of this we can really be together again.**

**Love-  
Kelly.**

I wiped away my tears as I re-read the message again and again.

Sender unknown- was the only response I got when I tried to access her name from the message, and a quick scan for her name came up blank.

She made certain that I would not be able to find her.

I momentarily thought about heading over to the starting town to see if she was around- but I knew she wouldn’t be that careless.

When Kelly made her mind up to do something, she’d make sure to do it right.

“Gosh, the sentimentality is just so intense! It’s almost breaking my heart!”

I rolled my eyes.

“Come on now- we’re wasting time. I only stayed around this place because there’s loot we can secure if I have my loyal ‘plus one’ little tempest to play with.”

I glanced up at Serra.

Every fiber of my being wanted to walk away and have nothing to do with her.

But this is what Kelly wanted.

This is what she thinks I need.

I sighed, swallowing my pride as I responded:

“Fine- where do we start?”

Her eyes lit up at this.

“Really? I actually thought it would take longer to convince you. Hnn- you really trust that sister of yours, huh?”

She took a step back, and studied me a little seriously now.

“Well then, let’s get going! First things first- new spells. I know you spent all of your points on that swap places spell… like seriously, a spellcaster class? Even if you swapped places with your sister when she was in trouble, you would have just died! Dumb ass!”

I rolled my eyes again.

This girl was clever but a massive pain in the behind.

“You know, I don’t remember you talking this much yesterday.”

“Uh-huh! I know, right! Look at me! I’m all, ‘opening up’ and being myself around you. Lucky you, right?” she gave me an enthusiastic nudge, before walking ahead.

“What would it take for you to stop?” I muttered, but she didn’t even take notice, as she continued to chatter away.

She led me eventually to the woodcutter who I’d spoken to when I played the tutorial part of the game on my first day.

“Was this your tutorial guide?”

“Uh-huh… You’re not going to make me play the tutorial again, are you?”

“Hah. No. What do you think I’m here to teach you from the basics go up? That would take _forever_. I just need you to be able to kill stuff. Here- you can learn basic skills and spells for your class from your tutorial guide.”

“Okay… I thought you were gonna pay for me to learn the good stuff.”

“Yeah- but I don’t wanna throw in a ton of gold and have you die on our first quest. Besides- what we need for our first hunt are some basic spells. Here-”

She handed me some coins, and I choked back a gasp.

“Ten thousand? Really?”

“Yeah- you’ll need to buy some basic stuff. Relax, we’ll make plenty more.”

_This girl needs a new understanding of what basic means!_

It was more gold than our entire group had collectively!

“You’ll need to learn; _slice through wood/stone_ , _earth_ tremor, and _animal friendship_.”

I watched her uncertainly.

Were those skills really going to help in killing stuff? Or was I supposed to be her resident squirrel befriending lumberjack?

“Okay- do I need to unlearn any or-?”

“Nah- not until we need your advanced class skills. These will do for now. Also, what’s your strength/dexterity stats?”

I gave her the necessary info and she hurried off, but not before stopping to add:

“Oh, and learn _minor illusion_ too!”

She came back not too long later with a rapier and a leather shirt.

“That the standard stuff for a spellcaster class?” I asked, a little sarcastically.

“No- but you have no offensive spells. So you’ll need some way to contribute to combat. Here,” she tossed me the rapier, and I almost cut myself trying to catch it by the hilt. “Just stick ‘em with the pointy end. Easy, right?”

“So where are we headed first?”

At this she cracked a wry smile:

“I dunno- so many fun things to do, I just can’t decide! Although… there just happens to be a certain lich nearby that might be worth going after.”

The lich?

And just the two of us?

 _She’s crazy!_ I thought.

My mind immediately went back to thinking of ways to find Kelly.

“Hmn. That look on your face is so pathetic. I see why ‘little sis’ left now.”

 _Don’t let her get to you_ , I thought, as I stalked off to the edge of town.

“Tell you what- if you wanna give up so badly, I’ll give you a chance. There’s a little something that you need to master before we can go after the lich- and I’m not willing to waste more than a day on that. You fail, and I’ll call little sis for you myself and let her know she can come pick up her no good useless failure of a brother- that is, if she even wants you still after you fail her like that.”

I glared at Serra a bit.

Kelly would never truly abandon me, I knew that.

But- she did have one teeny tiny little point, which struck a chord in my heart:

I wanted Kelly to look up to me again.

I wanted to make her proud.

I didn’t want to fail after one day before going back to her as a miserable failure.

Sure, a huge part of me was worried about her being in trouble without me there to protect her, but the truth was that she’d shown herself to be more than capable of handling herself.

I had become the weak link- the thing holding her back.

Kelly already had my love, but now it was time I gave her my trust.

“Fine,” I spat, “what do I have to master?”

“Oh-? I think I like that look, _big brother_ ,” she responded, her tone as teasing as ever.

Serra led me past the clearing outside of town, to where the woods began.

We walked to the edge of the clearing where there stood a great, tall majestic oak, which towered over the cluster of trees in the little grove.

“Kill this,” she muttered, pointing at the tree, and I studied her, a bit confused.

“What?”

“And no- I don’t mean use your new lumberjack skills to hack it down. Kill this oak, treating it as if it were an enemy.”

I studied the tree for a moment.

Sure I’d just learned the ‘slice through wood/stone’ spell, but that was a near to useless skill in combat.

Come to think of it, none of the spells she’d asked me to learn had combat purposes, did they?

I drew my rapier then studied the tree a little.

There was no way I was going to hack that tree down with this little glorified toothpick…

What else did I have? A hand axe?

It was for chopping wood, but if Serra didn’t want me using a wood chopping skill, I doubt she wanted me to use a means like that.

I sighed.

“Oh great and wise Serra- please show me the way to the light.”

I didn’t to hide the sarcasm in my voice one bit, but she beamed happily at me nonetheless.

“Flattery! How did you know?” she made a show of swooning over to me, wrapping her hands about my shoulders to my chagrin.

“Good big brother- at least I didn’t have to watch you stand here hacking at it like some moron. Rapiers cost gold too, you know?”

“So what- am I still killing the tree, or-?”

“Yup, you are. But first there are a few things about this game that I need to make sure you understand. The first is this- stand here.”

She led me over to a tree trunk, then after a second, a green glow appeared in her hand and I stifled a yelp a brilliant light shot out at me, knocking me off balance.

*Thud!

I landed on my back, and hard.

_Jesus, did I actually just take damage?_

“Good little moron,” she quipped playfully, as she stood over me happily.

_Sigh… this was a safe zone. I could have just taken the hit, huh._

“So, what have we learned?”

“Don’t damage yourself falling over like an idiot for no reason?”

“Well… I was actually counting on you doing that. But I’m glad you noticed- you took damage, right?”

“Yeah… fall damage, I guess?”

“Uh-huh- but what did it feel like?”

“Like if I hurt my back.”

“Right! So…” without warning, she pulled a hammer out from somewhere behind her back, and swung it at me.

I rolled out of the way, then winced, as a pain shot up my back- but she didn’t give me a chance to breathe.

She was on me with lightning speed and intensity; the first swing I got my rapier in the way, but clumsily stepping back, the second one crashed into me, and hard!

“Ugh,” my vision was blurred, and I tried to fight away the stars.

Serra stood over me, with a gloating smile.

“So- did that feel like combat in any other game you’ve ever played?”

I rubbed my head gingerly.

Sure, I didn’t take any damage, but that hurt.

A lot!

“No- it didn’t. It almost felt like a-”

“-real fight? Ha! You think I can swing a hammer and move like that in real life? No. The game just enhances your physical abilities to the point that you can do the things that would come naturally with your attributes.”

Even as Serra had that arrogant smirk on her face, I couldn’t help but be impressed with her.

To her, this was just another game engine, and she had gone to work on mastering it without stopping to hesitate for even a moment.

“So how do I kill the tree?” I muttered, genuinely curious.

“With _slice through wood/stone_! Duh!”

I studied her stupidly, and she grinned.

“Not using it on the tree of course, that’s still off limits- but I said you had to treat that tree as the enemy. I didn’t say anything about… that one, or that one. Or that one!” she added, as she pointed cheerfully at the trees surrounding the oak.

_You really think you’re clever, don’t you?_

“Well? Get to work _big_ brother! Lesson one: a falling tree does more damage than one idiot with a rapier!”

I walked over to the tree adjacent to the one I was supposed to kill, and Serra watched with exaggerated anticipation as I concentrated on the spell, then with a swing of my hand, sliced through the trunk.

“What a perfect idiot!” she clapped her hands playfully, as the tree I had slashed fell several feet from the oak I was supposed to ‘slay.’

_Is it just me, or is she enjoying this way too much?_

“Your aim is terrible! Now if only there was some sort of skill- a tempest skill, if you must, that could improve your aim.”

“Mark prey? I can’t mark a tree…”

“Huh? You can’t hurt someone in a safe zone either…” she nodded suggestively, and I got what she was saying.

“You’re saying I can use spells in ways outside of what the rules state.”

“There are no rules- it’s called ‘spell description’ for a reason. How you use it is up to you.”

I stared at the tree and tried to activate _mark,_ but still- nothing happened.

“It’s not working,” I muttered, sure that she was probably going to smack me and call me an idiot for falling for her bluff.

“Well that’s because you’re doing it wrong! Mark is a concentration spell- concentration spells are activated and maintained through thought. So just think about how it might be done. I’ve seen players mark caravans, weapons and armor.”

I pondered it a little, then tried again, this time imagining that the tree was some sort of monster coming to life in front of me.

A mark momentarily shimmered about it, before fading.

 _Holy shit_.

“Was that it just now?”

She walked over and put a hand on my shoulder, and I gave her a little uncomfortable glance.

“Come on, don’t be like that. Use _synergy_. I wanna see.”

I did as she asked, then again, tried to visualize the tree coming to life in front of me, and the red outline flickered momentarily again before taking shape.

“Ooh- you learn quickly. Not half bad,” Serra muttered appreciatively.

The genuine tone with which she said it actually hurt.

I knew that low expectations could be a relief, but I forgot how insulting it could be.

“Now comes the hard part. Keep your mark on that tree, and…”

She raised a hand, and fired a beam of light at a nearby rabbit, and it tore through the little thing mercilessly.

I winced a little, raising my eyebrow at Serra questioningly.

“Do you think that’s what she’ll look like?” she whispered wickedly, and I shifted my shoulders under her touch uncomfortably.

“What who will look like?”

“Your little sister- when the monsters tear her apart in some dungeon.”

“What the fuck?”

She tightened her hold on my shoulder and wrapped the other arm around me as I tried to turn on her.

“Don’t worry- she’ll never blame you. It wasn’t like you’d be able to protect her if you were there anyway… or maybe she might- as she draws her last breath… maybe she might curse you for abandoning her to die like a helpless little rabbit, all alone in some cold dark cave.”

“Cut that shit out- I’m _not_ kidding!”

She cackled as I tried in vain to grab her, but she disengaged from me and bounded away with ease.

“Too easy big brother! By the way- just where did your tree go? Hmnnn?”

I was fighting the strong urge to lash out at Serra- but the feelings died immediately with the realization that she was right. The mark I’d placed on the tree was in fact gone.

“What happened?”

“You’re _super_ _easy_ to distract is what. Any mention of little sis and you’re up in arms. Your concentration broke, and the mark disappeared. So what do you think is going to happen if you’re dodging ice spikes and casting _slice_ while concentrating on the mark?”

“I see.”

“Yup. _This_ is your actual test. You have until evening to master your concentration. You won’t hit the tree with other trees unless it’s marked, and you won’t be able to mark it and keep the mark up if you lose concentration every time you cast _slice_. So how about it? Think you’ve got what it takes? Or am I gonna have to call little sis to come get her _loser_ big brother?” She was smiling happily as she spoke.

 _This girl sure likes games,_ I thought.

“Now I could stand here and play with you all day, but I do have some things to take care of. So I’m going to send a little playmate along to keep you company. When I get back, I expect that tree to be ‘dead’. ‘Kay?”

With that, she gave a curtsey then headed off, and I immediately began working on the concentration spell.

But it was easier said than done.

Every time I concentrated on casting _slice through wood_ , the concentration on _mark_ faded just before I could work out how to the right angle and positioning for slice.

I had sliced through two more trees when a familiar face came wandering along.

“Hey! It’s you again!” the little girl called cheerily, before running up to me and giving me a hug.

“Lina? You remember me?”

“Of course I do! Papa said he hoped you made it alright, and it made me worry.”

She spoke so genuinely and the emotion she displayed felt so real, I found myself wondering if she really was an AI controlled neutral character.

“Oh- right! The funny lady said to help you with these!”

She walked over to one of the fallen trees, and a green light appeared over both her hands, as she began chanting something inaudibly, and to my surprise the tree which I’d felled began to repair itself, and in just a few moments, was standing tall and looking as good as new.

 _She’s a druid_ , I thought to myself in amazement.

Even NPCs have jobs around here, don’t they?

I found myself wondering what other little tasks our AI compatriots were out and about performing as Lina went from tree to tree, repairing them.

When she was done, she stepped back to the tree trunk closer to the clearing, and I took it as the signal to get back at my tree slaying exercise.

I figured I’d start getting the hang of it sooner or later, but by the time my stomach let out a low growl letting me know that it was time for lunch, I had hacked no fewer than forty trees to the ground without so much as scratching the big oak.

As Lina got to work repairing the damage I’d done, I took a seat on the old stump and got out my lunch.

 _These were the skewers that Kelly had prepared,_ I thought, and a melancholic pang twanged at my heart as I wondered where she was now.

“Are you okay, mister?” Lina asked thoughtfully, and I marveled again at her design.

It was such a curious thing. Lina was one of the first NPCs I’d met in this game, but unlike the others she really stood out.

I’d so far met her dad, a couple guild masters and shopkeepers, but none seemed to convey the eerie lifelike nature that she embodied.

As I ate, I decided to test the limits of her apparent intelligence.

“Why are you repairing the trees, Lina?

She looked at me thoughtfully.

“Because the funny lady with the red hair said that it would help you save someone.”

Hmm.

“Did she say anything else?”

“Uh-huh. She said that if you asked me any questions about her, that I should tell you to ‘quit fucking around and do your job.’”

I cringed as Serra’s words came cutely from the otherwise innocent young girl.

She truly did have a twisted sense of humor.

“Okay. Back to it I guess.”

After eating the delicious meal that Kelly had cooked, I felt energetic and hopeful again.

But by the time evening came I was running out of magic power and nowhere near to mastering the task at hand.

“Ugh!” I groaned in frustration.

“Are you okay, mister? Maybe you should take a rest.”

Her brow was wrinkled with concern, and it made me feel at ease a bit.

“I can’t give up,” I muttered to her.

“Oh… I see. Well then- give it your best!” she cheered me on a little, and I found her support surprisingly invigorating.

I took a deep breath, then tried to focus.

Every time I imagined the tree coming alive, it allowed me to cast _mark_.

The problem was that as I began to focus on slice through wood, the mark would fade.

Maintaining the image of the tree coming to life was the problem.

If I lost sight of the image for even a second, the mark would falter; and that was before I even set about casting _slice._

I’d tried this from multiple angles, from trying to calculate the angles required before mark ended and hitting the tree with my own aim, to attempting to cast the spells as quickly as possible to get a hit off before mark was gone, but all had failed.

I’d managed a few glances through sheer luck, but no solid hits just yet.

“Well this looks disastrous,” a sickeningly cheerful voice spoke just behind me and I jumped, before casting a disapproving glance at Serra.

Lina smiled cheerfully at her, and I became nervous; my time was almost up!

“Well then, let’s see if you can still do it. I reckon you’ve got, what-? Ten minutes? -before I start calling little sis.”

I gulped.

Hmm.

Kelly had been on my mind all day.

Maybe I could use that to my advantage?

I tried picturing her at the tree, but the thought of casting mark and hitting her with a tree wasn’t the most enticing think to think of.

The mark faded and the tree fell, just to the left of the mark, with a loud *thud*.

Come to think of it, there was an obvious image that I was yet to try.

_Her…_

I suppressed the urge to retch as I conjured the image in my mind of Tracey, my ex-wife, standing at the tree, and sure enough, my _mark_ quickly took the spot, but as I sliced the image still faded and I managed only a slight glance again.

“Ooh, close! But unfortunately not good enough. Well- it was fun while it lasted. You can stop wasting your time with this loser, little one,” Serra called to a confused Lina as she began walking off.

_No._

_No, no no!_

I took a deep breath.

One more shot!

I conjured the image of Tracey again, and tried to make the image more life-like.

What was the thing that pissed me off about her the most?

Of course, it was the way she treated Kelly:

‘I’ve always hated her! You _always_ put her before me. _Always!_ ’ her image spoke the words to me from one of our many fights from the past.

Tracey knew how Kelly felt, didn’t she?

I suddenly recalled Kelly’s admission, that she had done things to piss Tracey off, and it occurred to me that my bitch of an ex-wife had probably done the same thing to her.

All those times she was around, and Kelly was silent and not herself.

Suddenly a new image appeared in my mind, of Tracey standing at the tree over an injured and dying Kelly.

_You bitch!_

_I’ll fucking kill you if you hurt her_!

A deep red outline appeared around the image, and I screamed my conviction into my action.

“Arrrrgggghhh!”

I never took my eyes off of the image of her as I willed my slice into activation, and in a mad frenzy, I cut my way through tree after tree around the oak.

Serra turned around at the sound in time to see every tree in the area crashing down onto the oak, and I fell to my knees, tears falling from my eyes, as the oak still didn’t budge.

 _I’m sorry, Kelly_ , I thought. _I’ve failed you…_

I remained slumped at the foot of the Oak, unable and unwilling to raise my head as feelings of failure and inadequacy incapacitated me, until the shadow of a figure darting around from behind me drew my eye.

“Necrotic touch,” she muttered, and a darkness which seemed to deny the very light of the sun began to pour from her hand.

The roots at the base of the tree began to wither and writhe, and a series of cracking sounds came from the great big oak as the massive trunk relented, and the whole mess of trees came crashing to the ground.

“One tree- dead!” she muttered in triumph, before turning to my slumped form. “Well now- there might be a gamer inside of you after all,” Serra muttered appreciatively.

Lina was looking on, a look of combined fear and worry in her eyes.

“Although…” Serra put a finger to her lips thoughtfully, as the darkness that surrounded her gave way to the light, “I wasn’t really planning to leave you- I just wanted to see how hard you would try!”

She let out a shrill laughter, slapping her knees a few times.

“The look on your face right now is precious! You should see yourself. Hahahahaha!”

I reclined onto my back, and panted from exertion and frustration alike.

_Couldn’t you have left me with someone less… crazy, Kel?_

I was pretty worn out, so we decided to just make camp by the clearing for the night.

Lina even helped us get set up before heading off to find her ‘papa’ just as it had begun to really get dark.

To my surprise however, Serra had Lina set up only one tent as I chopped some wood and prepared our dinner, and sure enough, as soon as we were finished eating, she walked over to the tent and beaconed for me to follow.

I entered awkwardly and uncertainly.

“Come on. I won’t bite… unless you ask,” she teased playfully, but it did little to set me at ease.

I began settling into a corner as far away from her as possible when she cleared her throat, forcing me look up.

“There’s something we need to settle.”

“Huh?”

“Your _synergy_ skill- it doesn’t quite work with me.”

I pondered the situation.

Synergy was a spell which had differing effects when used on different people.

With Kelly, it allowed me to share my stamina with her, as well as access to my mark and expanded field of view.

Come to think of it, when Serra touched my shoulder it barely felt as if we’d connected at all, so I knew what she was talking about.

“Okay- does that affect our plans?”

“Unfortunately- yup. But there might be a way to fix it…” she was giving me a mischievous smile and I tried my best to suppress a shudder, as the suggestive look she was now shooting me gave me a clear indication of what she had in mind.

In my experience with video games, character interactions might be affected by certain random traits; from anything like one’s favorite color to their compatibility according to their zodiac sign. So synergy might just be randomly more effective depending on these arbitrary combinations.

But my compatibility with Kelly suggested that it might be affected by the relationship between the two characters using it, making it was pretty plausible to think that the spell’s effectiveness was a measure of how familiar our characters were.

This meant that my natural distrust of Serra would result in its effect being severely impacted.

I let out a long, tired, sigh.

“What’s the deal- are you into guys or something?” she muttered teasingly.

I looked up at her defensively.

“What? No,” I replied.

She giggled.

“Am I not attractive?” She asked.

“Your avatar, sure.”

“Now don’t go selling me short,” she advanced as she spoke, removing her priest’s garb, before cupping her sizeable breasts and adding with a wink: “you know… they’re this big in real life too.”

Without her priest’s robes, Serra wore only a translucent skimpy nightgown that seemed to cling to her body in all the right places, revealing the luscious outline of her body.

While Kelly had designed her character with a body that was petite like her own frame, albeit with that delightfully enhanced bosom, Serra’s design was outright curvy, with creamy brown skin to complement her belly-dancer like figure.

I gulped.

“What’s the matter? I know you care a lot about your little sis, but what’s the holdup? Are you married?”

I shook my head.

“Otherwise spoken for?”

“I- uh, something like that.”

“Well- what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her… I won’t tell,” she whispered, with a conspiratorial smile. “Besides, this isn’t real Josh. Think of it as a- ‘mental exercise’ so to speak.”

“I still can’t.”

“Oh come on- it’s not like I could actually be a guy or anything like that…”

This I knew was true as well- sure, you could design your character to fit whatever gender you imagined or identified with- but I knew from the medical reports that your character’s biological makeup matched your own… so if it came down to sex, you’d know who was exactly what.

“Isn’t there another way?”

She pouted.

“Probably… but wouldn’t this be more fun? Think about it, Josh. Sex in here is just like a game… and I’m really _really_ good at games.”

It was a pretty convincing argument, for sure. But…

“I’m sorry- I can’t.”

She crawled over to me before pouncing dramatically, knocking me onto my back.

“What’re you-?”

“Shh, we’re bonding!”

“It feels like you’re trying to do something else,” I muttered, as her hands, tried to roam a bit about my body.

I resisted a bit before she relented:

“Fine fine,” she muttered disappointedly, before settling down. “Can’t blame a girl for trying, right?”

“You’re still on top of me…”

“Yeah, well get used to it- physical contact might help out with the synergy problem, and you better play along, because if this doesn’t work then we’re doing the ‘other thing’.”

“What do you mean? We’re sleeping like this?”

“Uh-huh!”

She was playful at first, squirming and shuffling a bit on top of me, but soon she was settling down.

“So- do we turn on our sleep functions?”

“Nope! That would kinda defeat the point of this- sleep mode kills your senses. The idea here is to start establishing a connection, and physical closeness doesn’t accomplish anything if you don’t feel anything.”

She tossed and turned a bit, going quiet before eventually speaking again:

“You still up?”

“Uh-huh.”

She sighed.

“Were you sad- when she died?”

“Huh?”

“Your friend.”

“Oh- we’d only recently met… but yeah… I was.”

She shifted a little on top of me.

“I don’t think anyone would be sad if I died…”

“That’s not true, I’m sure-”

“Not that I care anyway. I’m probably like, the least likely to die in this place,” she added with a scoff, and I rolled my eyes at her.

She gave me a sharp little nudge, but I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe she was a little more fearful than she was really letting on.

My mind went back to Kelly. She was so scared on the first night, but at least we had each other.

If Serra really had no one, maybe it was hard on her?

I tried to picture it and all I got was an image of her riding naked on a bear while throwing spears at goblins while laughing insanely and shouting ‘this game fucking rocks!’

The image elicited a little chuckle, and Serra nudged me in protest, giving a little irritable whine.

I tried to fall asleep, but no matter what I did I couldn’t quite get comfortable and relaxed enough to drift off, and even when I did eventually fall asleep I found myself frequently waking, sometimes to the disgruntled groans of my equally uncomfortable sleeping partner.

By the time morning came and our wake up alarms went off, we were both somewhat miserable, and Serra wore a pretty grumpy expression on her face.

“That has got to be the worst night of sleep I’ve ever had in my life!” she complained with a stretch.

It was such a curious thing; our virtual selves always looked so perfect at all times.

We didn’t look disheveled when we woke up, and though I hadn’t taken a bath since we first started playing, our bodies never smelled or produced any waste for that matter.

Yet the disgruntled look on Serra’s face told me as plain as day that she slept about as miserably as I did even if her avatar looked as perky and fresh as ever.

We ate a light breakfast before heading out.

“So- what’s the approach?” I asked.

“Our lich has been busy- raising dead all over the place. We’ll need to clear out some camps before making our move.”

“Gotcha.”

We made the trip to the ruins without incident, before surveying the scene.

Just as she’d mentioned, undead were pretty much everywhere around the camps that we’d cleared out in our previous run.

“Should I scan?” I asked, and Serra shook her head.

“Nope- waste of magic, that spell. Here-”

She whispered something, and a white glow appeared momentarily about her, and soon a few small lizards came up to us.

“Talk to them,” she said, nodding at them, “ask them to scout around and see what’s up.”

I did as she requested, and the lizards scurried off, and sure enough within ten minutes or so they returned, and revealed all that they had seen.

It was so surreal, hearing the lizards speak.

Their words were strange and echoey in my head, but they were clear enough.

I relayed the info to Serra, and she nodded:

“Good- that’s enough.”

I pat one on the head, and he nuzzled me affectionately before I dismissed them and they headed off.

 _I kinda like that one,_ I thought.

“Okay- lets go,” she muttered, and I followed after her.

We got to the bottom of the valley, when Serra motioned to me to stop.

She pulled a little sack from her bag, and began to scatter some salts, leaves and other tidbits about herself in a circle, then drew a few lines with a paint like liquid, then putting her hands together, the circle began to glow white.

“Whoa- what is that?” I asked, and she arched an eyebrow at me disbelievingly.

“Are you seriously a tempest that doesn’t know about rituals?” she asked.

I looked at her blankly and she sighed.

“I keep forgetting what a noob you are. Rituals draw spell energy from the components used to cast certain spells, instead of drawing power from the caster. They’re handy, but take some time to set up.”

She focused on setting up her ritual a bit, before adding:

“Okay. We’re ready. This one is called silence; there won’t be any sound within twenty feet of us. Use synergy and we should be unaffected though.”

I nodded, drawing my rapier.

“When I hit with my hammer, you go for a weak spot- neck, anywhere exposed. We hit and run, don’t stop to finish anyone off. Got it?”

I nodded again, then as she activated the final part of the sequence, I placed a hand on her shoulder and we were off.

As we moved, she shot me an annoyed glance as despite using synergy our sync was distinctly off, but these enemies were pretty weak; they were all animated versions of the goblins we’d slayed, apparently, and with Serra in the lead we’d dispatched them quickly enough.

We tore through two camps easily enough before tragedy struck; I had just pierced an undead goblin in the neck, and just as I spun around in pursuit of Serra, we collided, hard, and it threw me to the ground.

I was a little dazed, but as I tried to shake it off I noticed Serra staring wide eyed at me, her actions animated and panicked.

“What’s-” I started, but stopped short as the words appeared not to come out as I talked.

 _Silence spell,_ I thought. _Guess the synergy had worn off._

I was still trying to get my bearings when Serra deactivated the spell, and all at once, I heard a loud huff from behind, and turned around in time to see a large creature almost upon me, at full charge.

I rolled just as it was upon me, a sharp extended tusk just missing me by mere inches as the galloping monstrosity went past me and further up the camp.

“Jesus Christ, what is that?” I exclaimed with my newfound voice.

“Skeletal steed,” Serra muttered, “get up, you need to draw him to something he can’t charge past. There; that rock!”

I did as she ordered, but not before marking the steed and trying my best to transfer the mark.

She gave me a halfhearted thank you then took down a few undead around my position.

The steed took aim at me and charged again.

 _Jeez, maybe a level or two in rogue mightn’t be so bad_ , I thought, as I once again made a clumsy dive to escape being skewered, but his charge this time wasn’t as intense as he had to stop short to prevent a full on collision with the rock.

He turned on me, then hoofed at the ground with a snort, but before he had a chance to strike again, Serra came down with a leap from above the rock.

“Divine Smite,” she muttered, and her hammer glowed, then exploded with light as the blow stuck, and the horse shattered into a mess of bones about us.

“Damn,” I muttered appreciatively.

“Priest, remember? Undead is kind of my thing,” she announced proudly, but we barely had time for the interlude as the undead around the camp began to swarm around.

“You have a plan for this I assume?”

“Of course- what kinda girl do you take me for? Use your _pulse_ , and tell me how many there are.”

“About forty-five.”

“Okay just back up, and wait for my signal.

We backed up until we were flat against the huge rock, a sizeable horde upon us, before Serra grabbed the sigil that hung from her neck and raised it up, releasing a blinding flash of light.

“Now!” she yelled, and I followed her lead.

I thought we were making a run for it, but as she got somewhere near the center of the crowd she stopped short, then shot me a serious look that said ‘do not fuck this up.’

“Hit them as they freeze, got it?” she asked, and I nodded.

She raised her hand and sword shaped lights began to appear before her.

 _Suspended animation,_ I thought. This was what she had used that day to save us from the lich, but instead of calling up all of the lights at once, she was bringing them out one by one, with deliberate delays.

I tried to remember if the spell was supposed be used like that, but as I noted the look of intense concentration on her face, I assumed that it was not.

The first light suspended a small group in front of us, and I struck.

As a spellcaster, it was pretty difficult for me to even land proper hits normally, but in their frozen state I noted that it was much much easier than ever.

 _Be quick,_ I told myself.

As group after group approached us, Serra suspended them and I tried my best to take them down.

By the time she used the last of the lights, we had thinned the crowd to a manageable amount, and as she rejoined the fight with her war hammer we quickly took them out.

I was panting from exhilaration, and even Serra seemed a little on edge.

I studied her uncertainly, and after taking a final deep breath, she turned on me angrily.

“What the fuck is your problem? Are you just that stupid or are you actually _trying_ to get us fucking killed?!”

“I’m- sorry,” I blinked a few times fully expecting her to continue her tirade on me, but instead her expression immediately shifted from anger to horror.

“Fuck me- I just wailed on you, didn’t I?” she took a few steps back, then slumped to the floor right there amongst the mass of corpses and skeletons.

“A-are you alright?” I was concerned.

“Fuck,” she whispered now, “when the fuck did I become the idiot who rages at noobs?”

She looked on the verge of tears, and I wasn’t sure how to react.

She took a few long minutes to compose herself, before standing up.

“Come on, we need to burn these corpses,” she muttered blankly, but I couldn’t help but notice the absence of her usual playfulness in her voice.

We gathered the bodies and made a pyre using some of the firewood that Serra made sure we’d stocked up on after our tree slaying expedition, and set them ablaze, before setting up camp on one of the hills that overlooked the valley.

Serra appeared to be deep in thought, and we ate in silence by the light of the camp fire.

She seemed curiously sentimental and I wondered what was going on in her head, but she never spoke up even as we set up our tent, and as we got ready for bed things were more awkward than ever.

I lay down and she gingerly climbed on top of me, still silently brooding.

She was still for a bit, and I began to wonder if she’d drifted off already when she spoke:

“You probably hate me, don’t you..?”

I thought about the question carefully, before responding:

“No. I don’t. Why do you think that?”

“I yelled at you.”

“Yeah- well I kinda did fuck up…” I countered.

“No. I knew what your skill level was getting into this. I made the choice to take you along. It was my error, not yours.”

“Still-”

“It’s okay, you know. A lot of people hate me- so I understand-”

“Hey-” I sat up a bit, and she moved off of me. “Where is this coming from?”

She gave a little bitter laugh, “Seriously, you don’t know? Gamers can be some of the cruelest people on earth… you don’t even need to suck to get yelled at... When we started playing competitive _league,_ my teammates yelled so much I started yelling back, but they were assholes so I never really thought much of it. But I kinda always thought I would be different; that I wouldn’t yell at noobs for sucking; but I yelled at you even though I knew it was ridiculous for me to expect you to instantly play outside of your tier.” She sighed, “one little death scare and I lost it.”

I still felt pretty bad.

Serra was an amazing player, and I had the distinct feeling that I was just holding her back.

“Why’d you really offer to party up with me?” I asked, and she shrugged.

“Having even one person with you makes a world of difference in this game, and you fit the bill perfectly; you listen, you don’t outright suck, and you seemed like a half decent human being by my standards.”

“Wouldn’t someone more skilled be a better match?” I asked.

“Hah- you clearly don’t know what it’s like being a girl in the world of professional gaming. Even when you play with players below your tier, you have your every decision questioned, everyone acts like if they know better than you do, and you get the added bonus of almost always being sexualized in every possible manner. Soloing was less of a choice and more of something I was pushed into.”

I chuckled a little.

“For someone who gets sexualized a lot you sure come onto me pretty often.”

She shoved me in the chest.

“Jackass! Just because I hate being sexualized by every fucking loser that walks through the door doesn’t mean that I don’t have a sexuality of my own!”

I studied her, then held up my hands apologetically.

“You’re right- I’m sorry.”

She rolled her eyes, then sighed before reluctantly climbing back into position on top of me.

She shifted around a bit uncomfortably, before she spoke again:

“Are you sure? That you don’t hate me, I mean? Synergy didn’t seem to get better- at all…”

I thought about what she’d said for a bit, before suddenly sitting up and gesturing for her to get off.

“Hey- What gives?” she complained.

“Just get up,” I chided, nudging her off of me and onto her side.

She was about to continue her protest when I slid over to her, pressing my body into her back, and putting an arm about her, pulling her in tight.

I put my other arm under her head, and she nestled herself into the nook between my arm and neck, and I caught myself just as I was about to give her a little kiss on the back of her head.

 _Fuck_ , I thought to myself, _I really do miss Kelly._

She nuzzled my arm, and gave a little satisfied sigh.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna do the other thing?” she asked, rolling her hips against my pelvis; but all it did was earn her a little warning smack.

“Behave,” I warned, and she whined softly in protest.

She squirmed a little bit in my arms before placing a hand on my own hand, which rested on her stomach.

“This is nice…” she muttered absently, before suddenly asking “Is this how you and little sis slept?”

I began coughing as the unexpected question caught me off guard, and left me distinctly flustered.

“Uh- not exactly,” I responded, clearing my throat, and she giggled a little.

“Have you ever?”

“What?”

“Slept like this with someone...”

Before I could think, images of going to bed with Tracey flashed in my mind, and I flinched instinctively at the sting that came with the recollection.

“Yeah…” I answered softly.

“Oh… well- she must be lucky,” she mumbled, before settling down.

I let the words hang in the air, but it didn’t take long before Serra’s breathing pattern softened, and became more consistent, and I realized she’d actually fallen asleep.

She was right about one thing, though. I’d forgotten how nice it was to just have the comfort of another human being there when I slept.

Not that it had ever really been comforting, sleeping like this with Tracey; but what it really made me think of was Kelly.

Sure we’d slept together from time to time, but I never had the chance to really hold her like this.

This situation was so surreal. Kelly was probably lying a few feet away from me in a hospital bed right now, but we might as well be a million miles apart.

It made me miss my sister more than ever, and I drifted off wondering what it would be like to hold her like this, not in the game, but with our real bodies.

* * *

When our alarms went off the next day, Serra woke up with a disgruntled moan.

“Ugh- five more minutes?”

I sighed.

The fact that sleep had been really peaceful and comforting actually annoyed me a little.

She turned over, still in my arms, and I found her closeness suddenly stifling.

Serra rolled me onto my back, positioning herself on top of me, before stretching out on top of me like a lazy cat after a long nap.

As she arched her back, thrusting her breasts out invitingly, and I fidgeted nervously as their softness pressed first into my chest, then slipped forward, hanging enticingly over my face as she moved forward, suspending her body above me by her hands which were placed on either side of my head.

I was about to ask her what she was doing when she relaxed her legs, allowing her pelvis to brush against my front.

“Seriously? Nothing? Not even some morning wood?” she asked with a giggle, and I groaned in disapproval.

“It’s too early in the morning for you to be misbehaving,” I scolded, and she shrugged:

“I guess I just can’t help myself around you,” she added playfully, before I sat up, forcing her off of me.

She gave a little pout, before crawling out of the tent.

I followed her out and was greeted by the sight of Serra stretching again, bathed in the soft orange rays of the early morning sun, and letting out a loud satisfied sigh.

“What a great day to kill a lich!” she muttered with a huge smile, and I nodded, smiling a little despite my anxiousness.

* * *

We stood over the mound where the Lich’s lair was located surveying the scene.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s here yet,” she noted, and I studied her with a puzzled look.

“You expect that someone will come?” I asked, and she nodded:

“Duh! A Lich appearing so close to a starter town is pretty rare. I’m sure word would have spread from your friends by now.”

“I don’t think they would-”

“-I don’t work with ifs and buts, buddy. Ideally I would have wanted to kill it the same day, but I needed a partner to get it done. Best case scenario; a bunch of noobs come by and just get wiped. Worst case- someone like me comes around with the same plan.”

“Okay, so what do we do?”

“This,” she muttered with a playful smile as a few lizards and a bird came along, drawn to the greenish glow at her hand.

“There- there and there, let them watch out for players,” she muttered, pointing out certain spots that she wanted my critter friends to keep watch on, before adding: “No scanning unless I say so, got it?” and I nodded.

To be safe she prepared a few alarm rituals around the ruins, and I managed to befriend a hawk, whose screeches we could hear from miles away, to alert us if anything at all got nearby.

Serra activated her Chameleon cloak and using my synergy, I kept a hand on hers and we sneaked in.

Serra took a deep breath:

“Okay- I can fight this thing for forty seconds max; you take longer than that and we both die,” she whispered, in a last minute review of the plan.

“I know, I know,” I muttered, trying to concentrate on the task at hand.

My lizard friends confirmed that he was indeed in the throne room, so we approached it while Serra put the finishing touches on her silence ritual.

“Josh- please don’t fuck up my silence this time,” she muttered, and I gulped, before nodding.

She took a deep breath, and we were about to go in when she pulled me back one more time:

“One more thing: you can’t lose sight of it when we’re leaving- you need to mark it before you lose sight, okay?”

I nodded again, but as she activated the silence spell and we moved for the entryway, she gulped nervously and my eyes shot open with surprise:

 _You’re nervous? You can’t be nervous!_ I thought to myself, and a little bit of panic momentarily gripped me, but as we entered the room with the seven foot tall skeletal monstrosity and I took her hand, I conjured an image of Kelly, walking ahead of me as she always had before looking back and holding out her hand for me, and as I activated _synergy_ , a curious warm sensation fluttered through me.

Serra looked back at me with a strange look that I could not place, before looking forward at the enemy we were about to take on.

“Lightning shackles,” she muttered, and as the green glow appeared at her hand she aimed it at the Lich, firing a web of light which wrapped about it, and giving us just enough time to make it behind the pillars on the opposite sides of the entrance before the light broke into fragments and an icy spike shot across the room just to my right.

I took a deep breath, before putting our plan into action:

“Slice!” I yelled, swinging my hand as I activated the ability. I made several slices through the pillar I stood at, and as the stone began to crumble and the pillar gave way, Serra raised her hand, holding onto the pendant that hung from her neck as she brought forth the sword shaped lights from her _suspended animation_ skill.

The pillar creaked a bit, before the first light appeared beside me, freezing it still and I dashed to the next pillar as Serra fired another lightning shackle at the lich.

As I sliced through the second pillar, I had to marvel at the sheer brilliance of her plan.

I mean sure, everyone knew that the lair of a Lich was corrupted by his very presence; but who would have thought that the divine lights of _suspended animation_ would have affected the lair itself just as it had the Lich?

 _Two down, six to go_ , I thought, as the second sword shaped light appeared at this pillar.

We repeated the steps three more times before a pulsar force emanated from the center of the room, knocking both myself and Serra off our feet just as a mighty screech came bellowing from the lich.

 _Shit,_ I thought.

Serra had predicted that the lich would possess some means of ending the silence effect, which would directly impede his ability to cast spells and limiting him to the ice spike ability that he activated using his staff; but as the towering monster aimed a bony finger right at me I froze in panic.

“Sanctuary!” Serra cried out, just as a wicked looking sword appeared out of thin air in front of me, and a white light appeared in front of me just as the blade swung, causing it to vanish in in mid slice before reappearing in full swing in front of Serra.

The blade cut a large gash across her shoulder and she cried out in pain before shouting:

“Move, idiot!”

 _Her spell had protected me_ , I thought, as I dashed to the next pillar and cut through it just as Serra’s light shaped sword appeared.

Her suspended animation ability was one which she could use only once per day, and typically it would only allow her to suspend all dangers in a radius marked by the sword shaped lights for five seconds; but she had discovered that if she slowed the activation sequence down, activating instead one single light at a time, she could increase the overall duration to forty seconds, instead suspending only small areas at a time.

But it would all end as soon as the final light was cast, and if at any point she delayed the activation by too long a time, the effect would end immediately.

 _Quicker,_ I told myself, knowing that she couldn’t delay the sequence by much.

As is, she was concentrating on the suspension ability while casting spells to distract the lich.

“Lightning shackles!” she called again, as another sword sliced at her leg this time, causing her to hobble a little behind another pillar.

I moved quickly, slicing through another pillar then without pause I dashed to the next and began slicing there as well as another light appeared at my side.

Serra shot me a thankful glance, but as she was about to activate the final light, the lich raised his hand, creating three swirling beams of fire, and I quickly put my hand to the ground:

“Earth tremor,” I muttered, and the ground shook causing the first two beams to crash into the wooden shelves just behind where Serra stood, and the final froze as the light appeared above him, slowing his movements to a slow motion crawl.

I retreated to the entrance behind me and cast my _mark_ skill on the lich, then dashed from the building just as I heard a loud explosion.

 _Fire storm,_ I thought to myself.

A skill that cost close to five hundred thousand gold, and which she had just used in combat for the very first time.

Despite the life threatening danger that the game presented, I found myself somewhat wishing that I could have seen it explode into the room, but the feeling was short lived as the very ruins seemed to be crumbling around us.

I got to the entrance and looked up in time to see Serra leaping from the top of the ruins, presumably casting _feather_ _fall_ on herself, as she landed with a roll at the foot of the entry stairs; and I ran down the stairs to meet her.

We watched as the entire lair came down with a crash, and I nodded at Serra as my mark vanished, indicating that the Lich had indeed met his end.

“How do we kill a lich, Josh?” she asked with an expression of mock thoughtfulness, and I rolled my eyes at her:

“We bury him in his lair,” I responded.

She was panting and laughing all at once, and for the first time I laughed with her, as we hastened away from the ruins, but just as we made it to our safe point, a loud cawing sound came from an eagle far above us, and Serra and I exchanged a concerned glance.

“Think we need to worry?” I asked, and she pulled me with her at once, leading me to one of the nearby camps.

She dragged me into one of the make-shift shelters there, then pulled me close, wrapping herself tightly against me, before retrieving an amulet, and draping it over us.

 _“_ Josh, use synergy- quick!” she muttered, and I did as she asked.

As we hid, she was panting, and up close I got a proper look at how bad her wounds really were.

“Can you heal that?” I asked, and she shook her head.

“Really low on magic- it’d hurt more to cast it than it would to just let it heal,” she muttered with a wince. “I kinda skimped on the low level heal spells anyway… because they don’t do much in combat.”

She was clutching onto me, her nails digging into my flesh, and I realized that she must be in extreme amounts of pain.

“Hold still,” I whispered, as I retrieved the herb kit from my inventory.

While I was still with Kelly, I had made it a practice to gather whatever useful medicinal herbs I could, making use of her class’s survival skills, and using them to make medicinal salves in case Kelly ever got hurt.

I applied one of the salves to Serra’s shoulder, and she winced a little, tightening her grip on me once more. Her teeth were gnashed and her breathing choked as she tried to bear the pain, and I stroked her hair soothingly as I waited for the salve to take effect.

“Jeez, what’s in that thing,” she muttered after a little while, inspecting the wound on her shoulder with a surprisingly pleased expression.

“Ginseng, valerian roots and garlic,” I replied, and she chuckled:

“We’ll call it ‘Josh’s miracle cream’ and sell it and make millions,” she muttered, half-teasingly.

“What does that amulet do?” I muttered, and she smiled smugly:

“Amulet of proof against detection,” she replied, and I suddenly remembered that I had used my scanning ability on the day when we’d met her and it didn’t detect her at all.

“That’s pretty useful,” I muttered appreciatively.

“Right?” she beamed, and I ruffled her head to her chagrin:

“I’m not your kid sister, Josh,” she scolded me, and my face went red with embarrassment.

My lizard companions indicated that there were four of them, all of which we were reasonably sure were other players (try asking a lizard to differentiate between a goblin and a human, it’ll be fun, I swear), so I applied the salve to the gash on Serra’s leg, and she settled into her place pressed tightly against me as we waited out our unwanted guests in our cramped little hideout.

Serra was quiet for a little bit, before her chatty nature resurfaced:

“You know, I’ve been giving you more than ample opportunities to cop a feel. Are you sure you aren’t gay?” she asked with a seriousness that bothered me.

“No- jeez, can’t a guy show some decency without having his sexuality questioned?”

“Well I know you weren’t snuggling with little sis like we did this morning, and you aren’t married… soo- girlfriend?” she asked, and I sighed.

“Is this really necessary?”

“Yeah- we’re bonding! Synergy might have worked today but it still needs to be a lot better if you and I are going to get anywhere.”

I sighed.

“No girlfriend,” I muttered, and she studied me.

“So where’d you learn to hold a girl like that?” she asked, and I looked away.

“Ex-wife, I guess.”

“Holy shit, ex-wife? Wait, are you like some forty-something year old weirdo with kids or something? Because then I take back all of my flirting.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I’m twenty three.”

“And divorced? Well shit- I guess that’s worse than being twenty-three and still married though,” she added with derision.

“So wait- who’s the special someone? Are you like, still in love with your ex-wife or some stupid shit?”

I shook my head.

“Just leave it alone please?” I responded, practically begging, but she was oblivious to my discomfort.

“I’m starting to take this personally, you know,” she muttered, a little gloomily.

We ended up eating lunch while hiding, and a little while later my lizard friends came with the news that the group had inspected the ruins for a bit, camped out there for lunch then headed off soon after.

We emerged from our hiding place, stretching our apparently sore limbs a bit and I marveled again at the incredible attention to detail in the game design.

“Now for the boring part,” Serra announced as we stood above the collapsed ruins. “Ready to start digging?” she asked, with an expression of fake enthusiasm.

Thankfully my slice through stone skill made short work of some of the large chunks of stone, and Serra had a spell prepared called ‘feather weight,’ but it still took the better part of the evening for us to work our way into the Lich’s room.

The phylactery, which Ren had unwittingly activated, was lying in pile near the center of the room, where the lich was nowhere to be found.

I sighed, as Serra examined it.

One touch and the lich would be resurrected again.

“Protection from evil,” Serra muttered, wrapping herself in a faint white light, then “greater seal.”

She reached out tentatively to the shimmering necklace, then with a touch, the glow turned from white to light blue.

“Wow- could you have done that before it came out, or-?” I asked, curiously, but she shook her head.

“I was looking for a way to draw it out, but those goblins you all cleared out from here wouldn’t touch it either.”

She picked up the necklace, and it shimmered briefly before magically disappearing into her backpack.

“Mission accomplished,” she muttered triumphantly. “Now, let’s see if there’s anything else worth a damn in here.”

I quickly gathered up the valuables strewn about the room in the form of gold, precious stones and jewelry while Serra retrieved the Lich’s scepter and searched around his throne.

“Score!” Serra suddenly exclaimed with excitement, and I looked over to see her holding up a pendant hanging from a necklace, which seemed to be radiating a kind of dark aura.

“Magic item?” I asked, and Serra nodded. Her hand glowed green and she muttered: “Identify,” momentarily illuminating the necklace with a dim white light.

“Whoa,” she muttered, “This is motherfucking perfect!”

“What?” I asked, and she tossed the necklace my way, to my surprise.

“Tempest-only item, Joshie! And a really useful one; _Eye of the void_.”

* * *

Although the sun had long set by the time we were out of the ruins, Serra insisted that we make some distance between us and the ruins, but to my surprise she took us to the north; further from the town where we’d set out from.

The lands were strange to me, but I more importantly as I moved away from all of the places that had become familiar to me, I felt a disconcerting feeling of trepidation; as if I was being taken further away from Kelly as well.

“What did Kelly say to you?” I asked.

Serra was sitting on the opposite side of our tent, taking stock of everything we’d gotten from the ruins.

“Huh?”

“Uh. Auriel- my sister I mean,” I asked, and she laughed.

“Kelly, huh. Nice name…”

But as she pondered the question she studied me seriously now.

“You two are pretty close, huh?”

I rubbed the back of my head as I nodded nervously.

“She just said to take care of you,” she muttered absently, before going back to her work.

She seemed to be a little distracted though, and I was about to press the issue when:

*Bzz!

I twitched a little as the notification that I was receiving a call came up, and Serra glanced at me, a kind of worried look suddenly appearing on her face.

“Message?” she asked.

Her tone seemed concerned even though she appeared to be still busy at work on our stuff.

“Call,” I replied, but before I could step out of the tent she stopped me.

“Not safe- talk here, or not at all.”

I sighed, then tapped the answer button under the notification that read ‘receiving call from dumb bitch.’

“Hey…” I answered, feeling self-conscious about the way Serra was glancing at me out of the corner of her eye.

“Jesus, Josh- do you have any idea how many fucking times I called?” Tracey muttered angrily.

“Huh? I didn’t get a call until now…”

Now that I thought about it, neither Kelly nor me had received a call except when we were in safe zones, which I guess did make sense given all the dangers involved.

“Whatever, look- can you do something about your mom? I can’t sign over to her as your medical guardian, and she doesn’t seem to get it.”

“Uh- sure, sorry about that,” I muttered.

“You should be- I keep getting calls and shit, why the fuck did you even have me listed as your medical guardian?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose- I just never got a chance to change it since you left.”

“Never got a chance? Seriously?”

She sighed exasperatedly, and I rubbed my temples.

“You never think about how the shit you do affects anyone, do you?”

“Look Trace- it just slipped my mind, alright? I’ll fix it as soon as I can.”

“Great, and while you’re off playing a fucking video game all day I get to have calls about your ‘status’ and all kinds of crap.”

I sighed.

“Really, I’m _so_ sorry you have to be reminded that I’m alive. That must be a real pain.”

I glanced at Serra who was coming over to me now.

“Joshie- I need you right now,” she muttered in an exaggeratedly girly tone.

“Wha-? Who the fuck is that? Kelly?” she spat, and I shot Serra a thankful smile.

“No, that’s not Kelly. I- uh, I gotta go Trace. Bye.”

“What? Josh, what the-”

*Beep!

I dismissed the ‘call ended’ message, then returned my attention to Serra.

“So… who was that?” Serra asked, her tone teasing and playful.

“The ex-wife,” I replied, and she began to circle me, curiously.

“So I tell you that I need you in a deliberately sexy tone and her first assumption is that you were with… Kelly?” she asked, practically glowing now with excitement.

“She has- issues.”

“Oh, I’m sure _she_ does,” Serra countered teasingly. “Is that the secret to getting you all hot and bothered, Josh?”

She drew in on me, and I tripped over, falling onto my butt.

“Oh Joshie- your little sister needs you.” she moaned, climbing onto me.

“Ugh- stop that,” I muttered, doing my best to show no reaction to her teasing.

“Please, big brother? Look how hot you’ve made your little sis,” she continued, and I rolled my eyes, as she burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny,” I muttered, and she rolled away, still chuckling away with glee.

She relaxed onto her back, and as she calmed down a bit she looked over at me with a huge smile.

“You did good today,” she muttered, and I blushed at the surprisingly genuine praise, but her gaze on me lingered just a bit, and she licked her lips before adding:

“Josh? I’m in the mood to celebrate a little…” she muttered softly, and I noticed a subtle tone of urgency in her voice.

 _She’s serious this time_ , I thought, and I gulped.

“You know I can’t…”

“Yeah yeah- but what _can_ you do?”

I bit my lip nervously as she looked up at me.

“Kissing? Maybe some light petting?”

I shook my head, and she sighed.

“Fine- rub my feet then,” she muttered blithely, waving her feet at me expectantly.

I sighed, then reached for the foot to her delight.

“Mmh,” she moaned, “not sex but that feels damn good.”

I smiled absently at the compliment, and Serra gave a satisfied sigh.

“Wow- you’ve gotta be annoying as fucking hell- or one ugly SOB for your wife to walk out on this,” she teased, and I shot her a look of feigned indifference.

“What’s the matter- boyfriend doesn’t give you any foot rubs?” I asked, and she shook her head.

“No boyfriend.”

“Really? That’s so surprising,” I responded sarcastically, and she gave me a little kick for my effort.

“Ha ha ha, getting snarky now, are we? I think I can work with that.”

Her hands began exploring her body suggestively and I shot her a disapproving glance.

“What? You won’t at least _watch?_ ” she asked and I resumed the foot rub as soon as she settled back down with a disappointed sigh.

“You really love this _mystery girl_ don’t you? Tell me about her,” she muttered, and I studied her dubiously.

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno... what do you like about her?”

I sighed, pausing the foot rub to Serra’s annoyance, as I considered her request.

“She’s… pretty. Smart. Kind and thoughtful,” I muttered softly as I resumed Serra’s foot massage, and she hummed contentedly in response.

“Uh-huh, what else?”

“She’s been looking out for me for as long as I can remember- since before I knew that was she was doing, even.”

“Ever since your mom gave birth to her?” Serra asked with a teasing smirk, and I pushed her feet away in retaliation.

“Oh come on, I’m just teasing,” she complained, resting her feet expectantly on my lap again. “It is Kelly though, isn’t it?” she asked, more seriously now, and I studied the question with trepidation before giving a little nod.

She studied me a bit more before pressing:

“So- why her?”

I shrugged.

“I don’t think you decide these things. Sometimes, someone just makes you feel a certain way, and if you’re just lucky that it ends up being mutual.”

“I’ll say,” she mumbled, with a little frown. “I’m kinda jealous,” she added playfully, and I stared at her dubiously.

“What? I’m serious. My boobs might be this big in real life, but I’m kind of a geek. You know- skinny, pale skin, greasy hair. Not that I’m ugly or anything- but hey, guys think all gamer girls are just models and sluts who pose semi-nude with some kind of controller in their hands. Those girls probably don’t even know how to turn the things on much less use them! Real gamer girls don’t look like that- but that doesn’t stop people from expecting you to...”

“You’re a kickass gamer though,” I noticed.

“Doesn’t matter to most. Once most people know you’re a girl they kind of expect the slut with a controller thing. I mean, I _objectively_ believe that I am pretty hot… but, apparently that makes no difference, because I can’t even get you out of your pants with this smokin’ hot bod.”

Her tone was teasing, but I noticed for the first time a kind of loneliness behind her words, and I sighed.

 _She did save my life and agree to take me in,_ I thought.

I took a deep breath, then spoke:

“Fine- I’ll watch.”

She looked up at me disbelievingly, before her face broke into a huge smile.

“Seriously?” she asked, doubtfully, and I nodded.

“While continuing my foot rub?” she asked, with a wink, and I rolled my eyes in a show of exasperation, before nodding, and she wasted no time in stripping herself of her skimpy nightie, and removing her bra.

She studied me intently as her sizeable breasts sprung free of their confines, and she wasted no time in massaging them while shooting me a seductive look.

“Mnh. That foot rub is making me feel all kinds of tingly,” she moaned, as she massaged her right breast with one hand while the other explored the rest of her curvaceous body.

She paused for a second to interact with her character interface, and the linen wraps about her hips suddenly disappeared in ball of light, instantly replaced by a skimpy pair of silky looking panties.

“Seriously?” I asked, and she just giggled.

“What? Some of the merchants carry lingerie. Can’t a girl want to look sexy?” she replied with a sexy shrug, and I merely shook my head, trying my best not to get too distracted by the half-naked vixen pleasuring herself in front of me.

“Hey- you said you’d watch. It’s not as hot if you’re trying to look away,” she scolded me with a pout, so I reluctantly re-fixed my gaze on her eyes, and she moaned appreciatively, rubbing her panty covered crotch sensuously and deliberately while keeping locked on my stare.

She lifted her hips off the ground for a moment to pull them down, leaving them at her knees:

“Could you- please?” she asked seductively, and I paused my now distracted foot rub to remove the thin piece of cloth from her legs.

Serra rested a leg on my shoulder, and spread her legs a little, giving me an open view of the way her fingers were now massaging the soft folds of her pussy, and a steady stream of moans were coming from her mouth as she continued to tweak at her nipples.

“Would you play with these?” she asked, following my glance at her chest, and I shook my head.

“Nothing but the feet for you, sorry,” I muttered, and she whined discontentedly while continuing to masturbate.

I continued to rub her feet, my hands now moving to from her ankles to the soft swells of her calves, before moving back to the soles of her feet.

“Mmh, that’s better than nothing I guess,” she moaned.

As she worked her hands between her legs with increasing intensity, I studied the leg which rested against me, and I suddenly found myself distractedly admiring the wonderful texture of her smooth skin.

The honey-like shade of the tan skin looked positively delectable, and as I massaged the soft, smooth skin sensually, a peculiar impulse took me, and I raised her foot to my face as I rubbed at the soles and planted a subtle kiss on her instep.

I was sure it would have gone unnoticed, but Serra’s reaction was immediate and intense:

“Mmh! Oh Josh- Do that again!” she pleaded, and I continued to rub her foot sensually as I placed another little kiss on the surface.

I placed a few more little pecks before planting a much fuller, deliberate kiss on her feet, and her toes curled in my hands and her feet went tense in response.

“Oh! Mnh, unhhhhh!” she moaned loudly, in a final orgasmic cry.

I could see her juices squirting onto her hands as they furiously rubbed at her mound making a distinct sloshing sound, and she squirmed as the orgasm sent pleasurable shivers up her spine, and throughout her body.

She relaxed, then giggled a little as I gave her one final little peck on the foot.

“That was- unexpected… but good,” she muttered with a satisfied sigh.

She wriggled back into her clothes, changing from the sexy underwear into her more typical wrap styled coverings, before pulling me down and onto her.

“Can I return the favor?” she asked with a wink, and I shook my head.

Although the whole experience had me slightly worked up, I had resolved to put my own desires on hold until I was reunited with Kelly.

She studied me for a bit, before shuffling onto her side and pulling me quite affectionately about her.

She snuggled herself up to me, and as I adjusted my hand under her head she nuzzled into my arm tenderly. But as I gazed at her, my eyes were drawn to the place where Serra had been wounded in the fight with the Lich.

I withdrew a hand from around Serra, and she grumbled in response, quieting down as I traced the spot where she’d been hurt.

“You took a serious hit for me today,” I muttered softly, and she was quiet.

I put my hand back around her and pulled her tightly into a warm embrace, and she sighed contentedly.

“I promised her I would take care of you,” she whispered, almost to herself, and I held her tightly in appreciation as we both drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Over the next few days we travelled to a larger city called _Valhalla_ , where Serra had arranged a meeting with a rare item dealer.

Evidently, options to instantly travel from notable safe zones, like the starter towns and large cities were built into the game, but these features like many others were disabled in the survival setting that the perpetrator of our virtual imprisonment had activated.

The trip, however turned out to be pretty interesting; I managed to see some glimpses into the spectacular design that had gone into building the world of _Mythic Lands_ , and we came across a few small camps of bandits and other small enemies along the way, giving me some vital combat practice.

According to Serra, there were more or less safe passages between the starting towns and the larger cities in each of the Seven Kingdoms, but there were a lot of unique places of interest scattered across the continent which were dangerous to access but where some really interesting things could be found.

When we got to Valhalla, I was shocked to find a bustling town inhabited and run not by the games’ artificial characters, or NPCs, but by real players, many of whom had given up adventuring in favor of some of the less dangerous avenues of gameplay.

For the most part, the initial crowding around the starter towns had faded; now, only those who were either too scared or altogether incapable of playing under the circumstances remained there, but these players were living in the virtual equivalent of poverty. They lived in basic accommodations, and survived on basic meals and rations, but even these players were now a minority.

Even those who weren’t hardcore gamers had by now begun to play a little, to stave off boredom if nothing else.

The result of this was a distinct low tier of players who played quite modestly, focusing almost entirely on the non-combat aspects of the game like trading, crafting professions, and production skills.

As I walked through the town with Serra, I couldn’t help but marvel at the spectacle of this entirely virtual civilization springing to life before me.

We secured accommodations at a pretty nice place (a little to my excitement, as I’d not slept in anything but a tent since the game had begun), and headed to a local inn where we were to meet with her contact.

“So- what’ve you got for me?” the man asked excitedly, obviously familiar with Serra’s handiwork.

“A phylactery,” she muttered proudly, and the man’s eyes went wide with shock.

“Bullshit- not even you could make me believe that. No solo player can kill a lich,” he muttered with a disbelieving grin, but his grin immediately vanished as Serra called out the item from her inventory, and placed it down on the table with a confident smirk!

“Didn’t you hear? I’m not playing solo anymore,” she muttered, as she nodded in my direction.

“What? Even if he’s as good as you, you couldn’t kill a lich.”

He looked to me for some clarification, and I looked away in an attempt to deflect interrogation.

“Only one Lich has been killed so far, and it took a twelve player party- and three of them died in that fight,” he muttered incredulously.

“Hey, you know me- I don’t spill my secrets. So can you get me a price, or what?”

He studied it a bit, then nodded.

“Give me until this evening,” he muttered, and Serra nodded happily.

As we headed out of the inn, Serra met up with another player who handed her a note in exchange for some gold.

“What’s that?” I asked warily, and she smiled at me playfully in response:

“Info,” she muttered with a secretive smile.

* * *

Over the next few days, Serra paid for me to learn a bunch of new spells and outlined a fighting strategy for us, built around the use of my new magic item; _Eye of the Void_.

It was a pendent which allowed me to see through darkness of any kind, which gave Serra the idea for me to learn the _shade_ spell; a ritual spell which would cloak me in an area of magical darkness.

Although it would blind the enemies directly around me, it also meant that Serra wouldn’t be able to see, so it required a little work on our synergy spell and some practice to perfect its use.

Serra was also keen on acquiring a magic item to assist me with my stealth skills.

Her chameleon cloak was pretty good for camouflage, but sharing through _synergy_ wasn’t always practical, so she was after something that would help me out in this regard.

As we waited around for word on the magic item she was after Serra suggested that we tackle a nearby colony of Orcs.

It would keep us close enough to _Valhalla_ until Serra could arrange the deals for the new items and gear, and allow us a practice ground to work on our combat effectiveness.

On our first day, I was absolutely shocked by how much more effective a fighting team we had become; we took out about fifteen camps, with not so much as an incident to complain of, although I did take my first real hit; a spear from an orc thrust wildly through my cloak of darkness, and I was unable to get out of the way as it stuck me on my thigh.

Honestly it hurt so much I thought I would pass out, but Serra’s mocking laughter about the face I was making as the pain ripped through me was enough to spur me into fighting on with the wound.

I did notice however that later that day, as we were getting ready for bed in our lodging back in _Valhalla_ , Serra kept examining the area where I’d been wounded with an expression of concern that felt so peculiar, coming from her, that it was just a bit unsettling.

As odd as it was though, the change was endearing, so I refrained from teasing her over it.

On the second day, as we were preparing to take on the leader of the orc group, a team of adventurers tried to beat us to the punch, and by the time we got to the main camp, they were already in combat with the tribe.

“Stupid bitches,” Serra muttered, and I studied the scene with a little hint of worry.

“They don’t seem to be doing too well,” I noted. “Should we help?”

“Hah. They were trying to poach us, Josh. Why the hell should we?” she asked, incredulously.

“What if someone dies?” I asked, and she shrugged as she studied the scene.

“Then it’s their fault for being stupid. Doesn’t look like anyone’s dying. Let’s just wait till they get beaten up and leave,” she muttered nonchalantly.

Despite my concern she was right, and pretty soon they left in pretty bad shape, and we moved in to finish up what we’d started.

As we moved on the camp, I had to admit that Serra’s continued brilliance in finding unique ways to take out our enemies impressed me to no end.

We took out an entire unit of orc riders, by drawing them out of their camp and up unto a rocky crag. Using some of my various utility spells we cut holes in the rocks and I used _illusion_ , to conceal them, and as the riders rode over the traps, they fell from their mounts and Serra and I dispatched them with ease.

Then there was an entire orc village we took out by slicing large chunks of rock from a cliff face, and hurling them by combining Serra’s _feather weight_ spell with my new _catapult_ spell.

These were fights that would have taken five or six players and much longer periods of time.

“Ready?” Serra muttered, and I gave a nod in response.

“ _Whispers of the void_ ,” I muttered, summoning a shadowy veil over the camp as we entered.

I activated my _shade_ spell and taking Serra’s hand we slipped into the camp, striking down orc after terrified orc.

By the time the chief was aware of the attack, most of the camp had been cleared.

The chief required a bit more care though, as he would most likely be resistant to my fear tactics, and would fight relentlessly even in the darkness of my _shade_ spell.

As he emerged from the large tent ahead, I sent an illusion of myself charging at him.

He braced to defend the blow which passed harmless through him, but Serra was on the heels of my image, and struck the chief’s left leg with her _smite_ empowered strike.

She turned and ducked, shielding her eyes as I shot a brilliant spark of light just over her head, blinding the chief who was poised to strike at her.

She spun, and aimed her blow this time at his chest, crashing hard into the heavy armor that he wore, but knocking him back.

He shook his head, then swung at Serra, who rolled out of the way just as I moved in to join the assault.

 _Concentrate_ , I told myself, as I tried to cast my mark, not on the chief himself, but on an unprotected spot on the Chief’s armor clad body.

My mark shimmered over a vital exposed area, and I took aim before striking with my rapier.

The blow hit hard, and the chief staggered, dazed by the blow, but Serra didn’t give him time to recover.

Her smite-empowered war hammer fell directly upon his helmet clad head, and he fell to the ground, motionless, with a thud.

 _That was almost too easy,_ I thought to myself, and from the huge smile on Serra’s face I knew she was pretty pleased with how we were doing as well.

“Congratulations Josh, you almost don’t suck!” she called happily, and I gestured rudely at her before setting off to search the chief’s tent.

We made a lot on valuables, and Serra, apparently in a celebratory mood led me to a nearby village instead of heading back to Valhalla.

“Come on- this was where I started out,” she called enthusiastically, and I noted that it looked almost identical to my own starting village; _where I last saw Kelly,_ my mind couldn’t help but noting.

I followed her past the bridge to the familiar clearing on the outskirts of the village, and she continued leading me into the woods to a little grove.

“You know that most of the S-rank player’s died on the first day, right?” she asked, and I nodded as we came to a halt. “When I played the tutorial, I questioned the woodcutter and heard about a rumor; there was a dangerous boar which had killed an adventurer near a grove just outside of town, and since it was frequently seen around the area, the adventurer’s belongings remained there, untouched. I thought it sounded like it would be some pretty neat gear to set out with, so- I went for it. Didn’t even pick a class yet, just took a spear I got from the old woodcutter, and went in.”

I studied her, noting the fearful look in her eye as she spoke.

“It was a pretty easy kill. I had it wounded in a few hits, but I got cocky and it managed to catch me with a glance. I didn’t expect it to hurt, and I was still reeling from the blow when it charged at me again. I almost gave up- thought I could just die, respawn, then log out of this fucked up bugged game and sue someone.”

She bent down to the ground, and smiled bitterly.

“I almost died- right here,” she muttered, “all by myself, with not so much as a friend to mourn me if I was gone.”

I went over to her and patted her on the head reassuringly.

“You’re not alone now,” I muttered supportively, and she looked up at me with glossy eyes.

“I keep telling you, idiot- I’m not your kid sister,” she muttered, wiping quickly at her eyes as she composed herself, but this time she didn’t swat my hand away, so I kept petting her softly as she sat there, lost in her thoughts.

We ended up setting up camp in the clearing outside of town, and as we got ready for bed Serra shot me a telling mischievous glance.

“Oh boy- not again,” I muttered, and she frowned at me with a playful pout.

“I have needs, you know,” she responded defiantly, and I sighed with a reluctant stretch:

“Fine- what do you need, another foot rub?”

“That depends- will you suck on my toes this time?” she asked seductively, and I tilted my head at her request in disbelief.

“What now?” I asked, and she laughed teasingly at my reaction.

“Actually- I kind of have something else in mind,” she muttered impishly, and I studied her with trepidation.

“What fresh hell awaits me?” I asked, making a show of my despair.

“Soo… you know that spell I made you learn? _Make corporeal_? _”_

“Uh-huh.”

“Well- let’s say using it in combat is not exactly what I had in mind,” she muttered suggestively, her tone turning surprisingly shy. It actually worried me slightly because if she had doubts that I would acquiesce to her request, it implied that I was about to hear something pretty outlandish, even by her standards.

“Okay- use minor illusion to make an image of yourself over there.”

I studied her for a moment, then did as she requested.

“Now cast ‘ _make corporeal’_ on the image,” she continued, and I complied despite my hesitation, as a few ideas of what she had in mind were now taking form in my head.

“ _Dominate,”_ she muttered with an almost hungry smile, and I gasped as I suddenly lost control of the image of myself I’d created.

“Oh boy,” I muttered, as she began to undress in front of my image. “Can I sit this one out?” I asked, and she shook her head emphatically.

“Not a chance, lover boy!”

She quickly undressed my image, and ordered him to lay down, casting me a flirtatious smile as she stroked his cock teasingly.

“I’m not breaking any rules- am I?” she asked innocently, and I shook my head disapprovingly at her.

She eyed my clone’s cock hungrily as she bent down to wrap her mouth around the firm rod and she sucked on it, deliberately making eye contact with me, before withdrawing to climb above its erect member.

“Does it unsettle you, Josh? Seeing me ‘have my way’ with your very image?” she asked tauntingly, and I shrugged.

“Not as much as I thought it would. Probably because he doesn’t look like I really do and part of me refuses to see that image as myself,” I muttered with a satisfied smile, and she pouted.

“You’re no fun- you’re supposed to be all like, ‘noo, Serra. Please, I’ll do anything- just stop fucking me,’” she continued, but as she sunk herself onto the length of my copy’s cock, she shuddered a little, before muttering a dazed little, “oh my.”

I sighed.

“Well- how am I doing over there?” I asked sarcastically, and Serra bit her lip as she began to rock her hips, moving her body back and forth along the length of my copy’s engorged cock.

“Not bad- though I regret to admit that I do so miss your foot rub,” she muttered, her voice now thick and husky as her breathing became tense.

Her large breasts swayed as she moved, and as I noted the consistency of the movements I began to pay attention to the way she was working her body against me; her rhythmic movements almost picture perfect.

With her unrealistically well-proportioned body and those smooth, luscious movements she looked like a seasoned porn-star, and I was quickly finding my own breath a little choked up in my throat.

My tongue did a little dance behind my lips and I cleared my throat as an idea came to me:

“ _Relinquish control_ ,” I muttered, and Serra paused to study the look in my eyes as my right hand glowed softly.

“Hmn? Fine, then,” she responded, as she submitted to my request to give up her control of my copy, but she gave a surprised shriek as I immediately made it sit up, pushing her forward and off of his lap.

“Hey- what gives?” she asked with an annoyed pout, only to shriek again as the copy grabbed ahold of her hair and pulled her roughly into a kneeling position in front of him.

At my command, he wrapped an arm about her body and pulled her close, then using his knees, spead her legs wide before pressing her head down to the floor.

“Ohhhh,” came the long satisfied moan from her lips, as the head of his ridiculously proportioned cock rested against her lips for a second, before slowly, and deliberately sinking all of the way into her well lubricated cunt.

“What did I do to deserve this gift,” Serra muttered appreciatively, locking her eyes on me with a devilish look of lust.

I shrugged, then had my clone give her hair a little tug as he thrusted roughly into her, and she grunted obscenely in response.

He was resting his weight onto her now, while the hand which wrapped about her was grasping one of those beautiful honey shade colored breasts, tweaking the dark nipple at the center while pulling her body tight with each quick, rough thrust.

As Serra’s screams grew louder, I picked up the intensity of his pace and her individual ‘ohs,’ were quickly blurring into one long screaming moan, punctuated with the little huffs of breath that came with the meaty loud slaps each time their bodies collided.

She began to roll her hips to meet his thrusts, and as her lewd screams built to a crescendo her feet curled back and her body arched delightfully, going tense as she came hard.

Little shivers ran through her body, and I had my clone hold her a little more gently while he continued to thrust, softly but with a steady rhythm, prolonging her orgasmic bliss for as long as I could manage.

She finally withdrew from my clone and collapsed onto the ground, her breathing labored, but her eyes still on me.

I dismissed him with a wave of my hand, and he vanished into nothingness.

“Wow,” she muttered, between sharp labored breaths, before looking up at the tent’s ceiling with a huge smile on her face. “I know that was virtual sex with a lifeless copy of a still not actual human being, but that was so good, I think I’m going to count it as the time I lost my virginity.”

She glanced sideways at me, before adding: “Is it just me or are you really fucking good at that?” and despite myself I blushed at the compliment.

“It’s a lot easier to control everything when you aren’t distracted by how good it feels- I guess,” I muttered embarrassedly, and she giggled.

“I’m now convinced that your ex-wife is the dumbest bitch in existence,” she added, and I smiled at her with a little shrug.

She caught her breath then crawled over to me resting her head on my lap.

“Get some clothes on,” I muttered with a scold, and she begrudgingly complied before curling back up next to me.

“Did she get foot rubs and amazing sex like that?”

“I’m not that good in bed,” I muttered somewhat dejectedly, before adding: “but she did get foot rubs almost every night… until she started getting all distant on me that is,” and Serra shook her head disapprovingly.

“Cuddle me,” she demanded, and I smiled a little:

“Yes mistress,” I muttered teasingly as I complied.

“You’re spoiling me, Josh,” Serra muttered, her tone taking a strangely despondent tone, and I pulled her tightly into a warm hug.

It didn’t take long for her to drift off to sleep, and I followed her not too long after.

* * *

The next day for breakfast I decided to cook something instead of settling for another generic ration, much to Serra’s delight.

“If I knew this stuff was so good I’d have made you cook for me every day!” she beamed, and I grimaced disparagingly at my further decent into servitude.

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked, and she considered it.

“Well- I really wanted to get another magic item for you, but waiting around isn’t exactly my forte. There _is_ something we can do _,_ but I need you to be better at sneaking before we can press on.”

“I could multiclass to rogue,” I offered, and she shook her head.

“You’d be paying a ton for basic level skills at this stage. A magic item or two would be cheaper.”

We were still deliberating the matter when we noticed a small group of three players passing through the little village.

Serra took up to chatting with them, and found out about a hill giant nest nearby.

“Hm- are we doing it?” I asked?

She shook her head.

“Your rapier’s critical hits won’t be as effective against larger creatures, and my advantage against unholy creatures won’t be of any use. We’d be at a disadvantage- besides. Something is up with them. They gave me that info way too easily. Info like that can go for a couple thousand gold easy.”

“Oh.”

“Might have been interesting to track them- if either of us could track,” she shrugged, and gave a little smile.

After considering our prospects, we got ready to leave the little village, when a bit of a commotion erupted.

“What the hell..?” I muttered, as two players came dashing towards the little village, and the earth began to shake and quiver beneath our feet.

We left the clearing to climb a nearby hill, and as we cleared the summit we caught sight of a spectacularly large creature; A hill giant, standing some fifteen to twenty feet tall, was running in wide, earth shaking bounds, towards the village, where I now noted the two players who had come running in were panting, and trying to catch their breaths.

“It’s gonna catch them,” I muttered, and Serra nodded blankly.

“Probably some noobs who just learned that kiting doesn’t work on a hill giant,” she added with a chuckle.

She was just turning away from the scene, when something came to my attention:

“Are those kids?” I asked, and she turned back, taking a closer look.

“That’s impossible, this game was rated mature and there were way too many checks for any kids to slip past.”

But as she studied the scene below she noticed as I had, the youthful appearances of the two characters who were now, in a panic, trying to hide amongst the few little houses that littered the tiny starting village.

“Could players design themselves to look like that?” I asked, and Serra shook her head again.

“Did you have the option to set your age, weight or height?”

I considered the question.

There was a lot that the game selected automatically about our players that were based on the calibration phase. A lot of people might think that this was pretty limiting, but according to Kelly, in the beta test, a lot of players reported feeling incredibly uneasy when their game avatars deviated significantly from the appearance of their actual selves.

Serra stooped down a bit, and considered the scene.

“Let’s help them,” I offered, and she cracked a wry smile.

“There’s no guarantee that we can beat a giant in an open area like this. We have no terrain advantages to use, and nothing to stop him from just crushing us to death.”

“Are you going to stand here and watch them die then?” I asked, and she looked at me indecisively.

Kelly wouldn’t want me to die, I knew that- but she also would never be happy with me knowing that I watched others get killed without doing a thing to save them.

“Josh- wait!” Serra yelled, as I took off for the houses below, which the giant was now tearing apart as he chased the two youngsters.

 _Quick_ , I thought to myself, _come up with a plan._

The giant was attacking with a gigantic stone hammer; basically a boulder attached to the end of what appeared to be an actual tree trunk.

 _Maybe I could slice through the trunk with my slice spell, and destroy his weapon?_ I thought.

As the giant swung his hammer down on the young boy, he rolled just barely out of the way, spurring me into action.

Downward swings- I just needed to evade one swing and keep my footing to cast the slice spell, targeting the tree trunk that was the handle of his war hammer.

I took a deep breath then went for it.

“Over here!” I shouted, trying to draw the giant’s attention away from the boy who was now sobbing, and lying in a heap before the creature.

He turned to me, and I readied myself.

But as he lifted the weapon, his swing was not aimed downwards at me, but in a great horizontal sweep.

 _Fuck,_ I thought to myself as the great club came swinging at me from the right.

There was no way I was going to get out of the range of the arc, and evading something as large as a tree trunk was out of the question.

I placed my hand to the ground, casting the _earth tremor_ spell, but the swing, though faltering, still came at me with serious force and I braced for the impact when a figure suddenly slipped to my side:

“Shield,” she muttered, and a brilliant yellow rune-shaped shield appeared before us just as the Giant’s blow landed, and the lights immediately shattered into a million pieces as the hammer collided with it, the force from the blow knocking us to the ground.

I rolled, coughing as I tried to catch my breath, and clutching at my side which throbbed painfully.

“Serra!” I called, going over to her, and she was struggling to get to her feet as well.

Her spell had saved me, but we’d both been wounded nonetheless.

“Just when I thought you were growing a brain,” she muttered, before pulling me with her to the tentative cover of a little hut.

The hut shattered into a mess of wood and stone as the hammer crashed into it, and we were shaken off of our feet by the impact of the blow.

“ _Brilliant strike_ ,” Serra muttered, and a beam of light shot out of her hand, striking the giant in the head, causing it to stumble back a few steps.

“Run- Josh, what’re you-?” Serra yelled, but I charged at the giant, and as he steadied himself, his hammer resting on the ground, I dashed to it:

“Slice!” I yelled, slicing into the hammer’s wooden handle, but the spell didn’t cut through the thick bark.

As the giant steadied himself getting ready for another blow, I dashed behind the ruins of the destroyed house, before creating an illusion of myself and having it climb onto one of the house’s broken pillars.

 _Please swing high,_ I thought to myself, but as I steadied myself for the impact, Serra appeared at my side. She placed a hand on the pillar, and muttered, “ _Harden_ ,” and as the hammed swung into the house, it rebounded off of the pillar, landing just within reach.

I didn’t waste a second, dashing to it: “ _Disintegrate_ ,” I chanted, as I leapt toward the handle, aiming for the spot where I’d previously sliced, and to my delight, a loud cracking sound pierced the air, as the wood gave way and snapped, and the hammer broke off by the middle of the handle.

“Not bad,” she muttered, before hitting the giant with another beam of light, and he discarded the broken fragment of the handle as he covered his face defensively, with a roar.

I prepared to charge the giant again when quite suddenly, an arrow came sailing through the air, striking the Giant’s leg.

I gazed past the giant to see the second of the two players, a youthful looking girl, driving a stake into the ground, which was apparently tethered to the arrow that she had fired through the giant’s leg.

The giant let out a great roar, as he tried to pull against the restraint to get at me and Serra, and I moved in, attacking before dancing out of the way of a retaliatory swing of the hand.

The floor still shook whenever he struck the ground hard, but Serra was firing beams of light in the wake of my attacks, disrupting his attempted strikes.

I had landed three or four hits when I noticed an arrow fly past the Giant, landing to Serra’s right.

“You could land at least one, maybe?!” Serra yelled at the girl in annoyance, and I noticed that her hands were shaking as she notched another arrow nervously, before letting it fly, again missing the mark.

I landed another strike before an idea occurred to me:

“Mark prey,” I muttered, then concentrated on relaying the effect to the girl.

 _Think_ , I told myself as I evaded another swipe and stuck my rapier into the giant’s leg.

As I studied the young girl; her hands shaking, and wiping back tears, I suddenly had an image of Kelly conjured out of a distant forgotten memory:

We were at a carnival when we were kids, and she was intent on winning this stuffed animal from one of those rigged shooting game booths. As a gamer, I could easily hit my targets, but the requirements for the prize was that we both clear all of the targets on our respective sides. She’d missed a few shots, and some kids started taunting her, and I remembered; her hands were shaking, making her hits certain to miss before she’d even fired.

Even then; I wanted the entire world for her, didn’t I?

As I remembered my desire back then to comfort her, I concentrated again on transferring my mark to the young girl and I felt a subtle, almost indistinct flutter as she glanced at me, before steadying her hand and taking aim.

The arrow sailed through the air, before striking the giant in the neck, and he roared.

“About time,” Serra muttered, and we moved in now to strike at the giant in tandem, with arrows now consistently landing from the side.

We kept up the assault and it was only a matter of time before a final arrow sunk into his back and after taking a few shaky, delirious steps, he fell with a loud *thud!

I collapsed to the floor in an exhausted heap, and Serra plopped down next to me, studying me curiously.

“Don’t ever do that again,” she scolded me, the tone in her voice flat and serious.

I nodded, then looked over at the girl who had gone over to the younger boy, and was now hugging him, and sobbing openly.

Serra studied me, and I just looked away, trying to ignore the nostalgic twinge that the sight elicited.

“Josh-” Serra muttered as she tapped my shoulder, and I looked up in time to see three players approaching the children from just outside of the little village.

“What’s up with them?” I asked, studying the scene intently.

“I dunno- but they give me the creeps. Look-”

As they approached the two younger players, the duo seemed to react to the men with outright fear.

“Let’s go,” I muttered, and Serra sighed as I glanced back at her, before following along.

“I don’t want to get involved in this,” she whispered at my back, but I called to the group anyway as we neared them.

“Hey- what’s going on here-?”

“Just move along,” a man in a hooded robe uttered coldly, as he stood between me and the other two members of the group.

I glanced around him to see the two kids casting a pleading look of fear in my direction.

“What do you want with them?” I asked, and the man responded by throwing back his sandy brown robe to reveal a large sword on his back:

“I won’t ask again,” he muttered, and Serra approached me, whispering at my side:

“I have a really bad feeling about this, Josh.”

“Look guys- there’s no need for this to escalate into anything,” called one of the men from the back.

He wore a chainmail type of armor, and had a shield and sword notched to his back.

“We just need to retrieve a little ‘something’ from this here giant, and then we’ll be on our way.”

“Um-” the boy began, but the third member of the group, an older looking woman shot him a sharp glare, immediately silencing him.

I studied the scene, and Serra tugged at me again.

“Josh- I think the vibe I’m getting from them is PK feedback,” she muttered, and I gulped a little as I kept my eyes trained on the three.

PK was short for player killing.

It was an interesting combat aspect of most games, but in a death game, a player killing was nothing short of murder.

We were in a safe zone though, so even if a fight broke out we weren’t in any immediate danger.

But that still didn’t mean that being hit wouldn’t hurt.

The younger girl shot me one more pleading stare, but as I took a step towards the group, the man in the brown robe drew the large sword and swung it at me.

“ _Shade_ ,” I muttered, casting the spell without the ritual components, and Serra nodded as I grabbed her and tossed her past him and into the midst of the other two.

She crashed her hammer hard into the man in the chain shirt, before casting a protective spell:

“Spirit guardians” she muttered, summoning two ghastly apparitions.

“Firebolt,” the woman spoke, firing a bolt of fire at Serra, but her guardian deflected the spell and the woman shrieked Serra used the opening the strike her in response.

I closed in on the man in front of me, avoiding his wild swings in the midst of the darkness that had now engulfed him and attacked with my rapier.

He deflected my rapier with his sword, but I was quick, attacking him repeatedly, and on the forth thrust I stuck the pointy end of the blade into his shoulder, and he cried out painfully as he went down.

Serra was keeping the other two at bay, and I quickly went to her side, but the woman raised her hands, muttering something I did not make out which immediately caused a huge chunk of stone to explode at our feet.

Serra leapt off of the ground, avoiding the shockwaves, but I was too late, and it knocked me off of my feet, disrupting my concentration and dissipating the darkness that had shrouded me.

The woman stood over me, conjuring up waves of flames in her hands when Serra suddenly struck her hard with her hammer:

“ _Smite_ , bitch,” she muttered, as the woman fell to the floor writhing in pain.

The second man made a lunge for Serra with his longsword, but the spirits that she’d summoned now focused on him, deflecting the attack and pressing him.

He deflected two attacks from the spirit guardians with his shield, before I moved in and struck hard with my rapier, dropping him to the floor.

“We need to get out of here,” Serra muttered, trying to get the children up, but they resisted.

“We need what the giant has,” the girl muttered, and Serra tutted at her irritably.

“Then get it, and quick. They’ll be back up as soon as the pain passes,” she muttered.

I walked over to the children, when suddenly a terrible pain shot up my back.

“Argh,” I cried out, looking helplessly at Serra before the pain exploded, seemingly through every nerve in my body.

Everything went white and I lost complete sense of my surroundings, with the mind numbing pain shooting through my body the only thing I was aware of.

I passed out, and when I woke up, Serra was standing over me, a frantic look on her face and tears streaking down her eyes.

“Josh, josh- please, stay with me! _Heal_ ,” she muttered desperately, and I felt a soothing feeling rush through me.

I tried to move, and a wave of tumultuous pain shot through my body.

“Don’t try to move, Josh- just stay with me, please! _Heal_ ,” she muttered again, and the soothing feeling washed over me again.

I could barely see, but I heard her repeating it over and over again, until a new, strangely familiar voice joined her.

“ _Regenerate_ ,” it muttered, and I suddenly felt as if my body and mind were being pieced back into a whole from a shattered mass of fragments.

My vision came back slowly, and I was greeted by Serra, rubbing at her watery eyes, and the familiar yet strange face of a young girl.

“Lina?” I muttered, and the girl shook her head.

“My name is Rina, mister. Are you alright?” she asked.

I sat up, allowing Serra to wrap herself around me as I studied the little girl.

She looked every bit like Lina did, with some minor subtle differences, and I wondered if there was one of her in all of the little villages where the players started out.

Regenerate was a high level cleric spell, and she had been to cast it.

I immediately recalled Lina being able to regenerate the trees, and wondered if all of her apparitions had such incredible yet hidden latent powers.

“Ugh- what happened,” I muttered, and Serra punched me in the shoulder.

“I told you not to fight them,” she scolded me angrily, but I pulled her in for another hug and she immediately relented.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you like that,” I muttered, and she hit me again.

As I took in my surroundings, I noticed that the kids from earlier were still around, though none of the other players we’d fought still were.

“What was that?” I asked, rubbing my head gingerly.

“ _Rend_ ,” Serra muttered glumly, and I tilted my head questioningly at her.

If my memory was correct, then _rend_ was a pretty low level illusionist spell. So why did it almost kill me?

“It’s a low level spell, but the spell temporarily rends a player’s mind from their body. It’s been known to forcefully disconnect players from the game, or cause mind wrenching pain as your brain tries to comprehend what’s happening to your body,” Serra explained. “Using it, even in a safe zone, is nothing short of attempted murder.”

I stretched my muscles and realized that I had indeed barely lost any stamina, magic, or health apart from what I’d expended in the fight with the giant.

My mind still felt a bit woozy and dazed, but otherwise I felt fine.

 _What a cheap trick!_ I thought to myself.

I looked around, noticing again that the three were nowhere in sight.

“What happened to them?” I asked, and the girl behind Rina gave a little fearful shriek.

“They’ll live,” Serra muttered, as she shot a sharp look at the girl.

The girl gulped fearfully in response, and I figured that Serra must have unleashed a pretty good serving of hell on them.

I rubbed my head gingerly again.

“So what were they after?”

Serra looked to the girl behind us, and she gulped nervously before speaking.

“Hi. My name is Astrid, and this is my brother Lucas.”

The boy gave a little bow, and I nodded at him.

“We’re-”

There was a little pause, before the boy’s voice came out eerily, after his lips were finished moving.

“You can’t tell them, Astrid.”

The words sounded almost robotic, and I felt a little shudder go down my spine.

“What was that?” I asked.

“His English isn’t very good,” Astrid muttered, before responding to her brother in a hushed whisper. “We have to tell them something. They went through a lot of trouble for us.”

 _He’s speaking another language,_ I thought to myself.

I did know there were mechanisms in place for players with different language backgrounds to interact.

Automated translation had come a long way in the past few years, and of course you’d expect an ambitious game of this magnitude to utilize those improvements.

Serra was tapping her feet impatiently, and I noticed that the kids seemed particularly fearful of her.

“Look kid, if we wanted to hurt you we would have done it by now. What’s the deal?” Serra spat impatiently.

Astrid looked as if she wanted to say something, but her brother was adamant that she shouldn’t.

She gulped, before finally turning to Rina, who still wore an expression of concern and confusion.

“This girl,” Astrid muttered, “she’s different from the rest of the NPCs.”

I studied Rina as I pondered Astrid’s words.

If Rina was anything like Lina then I surely understood what Astrid was saying.

I’d noticed myself on more than just a few occasions that her programming seemed much more lifelike than any of the generic villagers and shop keepers that I’d spoken to.

“What makes her different?” I asked, and Astrid glanced at Lucas before continuing:

“She’s not just a scripted robot. The man who created this game lost his daughter when she was about her age,” she motioned at Rina, who was fidgeting nervously now that everyone seemed to be focusing on her. “For a long time, he was trying to find ways to cope with her death. This girl’s design was one of those ways.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He found a way to replicate a portion of her consciousness, by coding it and uploading it into the program that you see before you.”

“What a psychopath,” Serra muttered blankly, and the girl looked away uncertainly.

“She has none of the memories of the person that she was- but her mannerisms, her quirks, even the way she speaks and thinks; they’re unbelievably similar to the way she was before…” her words trailed off, and I noticed that Lucas seemed on the verge of tears.

“You knew her- the daughter of the creator of this game. Who are you?” Serra muttered as she advanced on the girl now, and Lucas stood protectively in front of her as she backed away from Serra fearfully.

“It’s not our fault that this happened- how could we have known that dad would go this far?” the girl muttered, before putting a hand over her mouth.

“Your- dad? Is he the one who’s doing this?” I asked, and she glanced at Lucas again before nodding. “Please- don’t hurt us. We didn’t know.”

Suddenly I understood why they were so fearful of revealing their true identities, after all, there were some players in this game who would torture them on the spot just for the satisfaction.

“It’s okay, we’re not going to hurt you,” I reassured them, and Serra backed off, laughing bitterly.

“Well this is fucking grand. Who is he?” she asked. “Is he playing too?”

Astrid shook her head.

“He’s controlling things from behind the scenes, but I can’t say who he is or he’ll know we’re here.”

“Is it Gary Wright?” I asked, and she shook her head.

“Papa used Gary to develop the game’s core mechanics, but he didn’t allow him to work on anything else. Gary’s team built the foundation for the game, then there was another team that worked on building the environments, designing the NPCs, the monsters, and a different one to develop the final protocols.”

 _Rigid compartmentalization,_ I thought to myself.

That’s how this happened without anyone knowing. Some of the coders probably didn’t even know what the protocols they were designing were intended for.

I glanced back to the corpse of the hill giant.

“What did you need from the giant?” I asked.

“This,” Astrid added as she held up a little envelope, which had the letters ‘invitation’ scrawled across the surface.

Serra glanced at it, then laughed again.

“So that’s where he’ll be?” she asked, and Astrid nodded before adding:

“Most likely he’ll be playing as the count.”

I shot Serra a confused look:

“That- is where we’re headed, Josh,” Serra muttered. “An invitation to count Ludwig von Lahnstein’s _court beyond the realms_ ; it’s being touted as the game’s first unofficial event. All of the top players are gathering.”

As I processed the information, I felt woozy again, and Serra steadied me as my knees buckled a bit.

“Let’s rest,” she offered, and I nodded, as she led me to the little clearing where we’d camped before.

She had the tent set up in no time, and led me in, before leaving me alone for a bit.

I fell asleep quickly, and when I woke up I found that my head was resting on her lap and she was stroking my hair soothingly.

“Did I die and go to heaven?” I asked, looking up at Serra with a wry smile.

“Just shut up and enjoy it,” she shot back, before flicking my ear in annoyance.

“Where are the kids?” I asked, and she sighed.

“They left.”

“What? Will they be okay?” I asked, trying to sit up, but Serra stopped me.

“Relax. They’ll be fine. ‘Little Lucas’ has cheat codes,” she muttered mockingly. “That’s why those three were after them. Apparently when they came into the game, Lucas generated a toolbox; an item that lets him generate gold, and special items. But- he kind of fucked up and it ended up getting picked up by that hill giant. Without it they’re no better than beginner characters, so they needed help to kill the giant to get it back. That’s where those three came in.”

“They were trying to use them to get access to the cheats?” I asked, and Serra nodded.

“Wait- if they were able to get in, does that mean they know how to get out?”

Serra shook her head.

“Nope. The game’s protocols are air-tight. They used a specially created back door to get in- apparently the same one their dad used to get in after launching all of the protocols. But even he couldn’t get out if he wanted to apparently.”

“Cheats, huh.”

“Yeah- pretty sure the game’s script will pick up on it sooner or later, but it doesn’t matter to them. They’re just trying to get to their dad, and put a stop to this. Although… I did guilt them into giving me a certain something.”

She was smiling coyly, and I rolled my eyes.

“Seriously? You’re fine with cheating?” I asked, and she shrugged.

She opened up her interface and withdrew the item, which appeared in a ball of white light in her hand.

“Here,” she muttered, as I sat up, studying a pair of boots that she was holding up. “Fleet feet,” she announced. “This is what I was trying to buy for you before we left _Valhalla_ ,” she added with a smile.

I accepted the gift with a smirk.

It was an item which improved my ability to evade attacks and maintain a solid footing when on the move.

“Cheater,” I muttered, and she stuck a tongue out at me.

“Hey- we were just rewarded for doing our duty as fine, kind hearted, responsible adventurers,” she added with mock regality, and I rolled my eyes as she continued to chat away about it.

“So- this count. What’s the deal?” I asked, and Serra regarded the question thoughtfully.

“He seems to be assembling the game’s top players, though nobody knows why. Some think the event might reward players with a ticket out of here- but whatever it’s about its going to be an elite contest. I mean, the only way to get a legit invite is to kill a master vampire, which is one of the toughest creatures in this game. That’s where we were headed next- but…” her voice trailed off, and I studied her curiously.

“But-?”

She sighed, then looked away a little.

“Look- being the top gamer? It means a lot to me. But that’s not what you signed up for, and I don’t want to be responsible for a repeat of today’s events. I can contact Kelly and tell you where she is if you want to leave and meet back up with her.”

Serra was studying me intently as she spoke.

I sighed, as I considered the matter, my thoughts going back to Kelly.

She’d handled herself pretty well when we played, and I could only imagine that she’d have gotten better with time.

Would she be there too?

I had a vague feeling that if she thought there was any way that this entire ordeal could be resolved she would be there, no matter how dangerous it was.

“I’m coming with you,” I muttered.

Those were words that I hardly ever imagined would come from my own mouth.

“Y-you are?” she asked uncertainly, and as I looked over to her and gave a little reluctant nod, she broke into a huge smile.

“Hell yeah!” she cried out excitedly, giving my chest an enthusiastic shove. “Although… it’s not like I needed you anyway,” she added in her typical ‘matter of fact’ tone, “But we’re definitely going to rock this shindig.”

Serra snuggled up to me, facing me this time, and resting her head on my shoulders as she stroked my chest while humming happily.

As Serra settled down in my arms, my thoughts immediately returned to Kelly.

I knew I could ask Serra to find out about her, but I had a feeling that she would want to keep her whereabouts secret from me nonetheless.

Would she really be there?

I had a feeling she would, and as I drifted off to sleep the thought that I might see her again was ever present in my mind.

* * *

The trip to Ravenloft took about four days; though we spent a bit of time on the way going after a few noteworthy targets that Serra’s contact had given her info on.

There was an owlbear nest just outside of a town called _Kent_ , and a Hagraven camped out in a grove near _Annwyn._

Along the way Serra also started me on a new training exercise to resist the _rend_ spell.

Apparently the girl had attempted to use it on Serra as well, but Serra had kept her concentration up resisting the horrendous effect that I’d suffered, and followed it up by striking the girl with a good old fashioned _smite_ to the face.

I didn’t know all of the details, although it appeared the girl had to be resuscitated as well, and the other two left with her after being single handedly bested by Serra in a second fight.

But Serra’s training was as outlandish as everything else about her. It involved her sitting on my back while I was in the plank position, and I had to maintain my shade spell while she cut me at random intervals without warning, with a sharp little dagger.

It was an exercise which would not only improve my ability to deal with _rend_ should it ever be cast on me again, but also improve my general ability to deal with pain in combat.

On the first day I lost concentration on the spell almost immediately every time, but I eventually got a better handle on it, and by the time we got to _Ravenloft_ , I was pretty confident that I would be able to resist _rend_ if it was ever again used.

 _Ravenloft,_ unlike _Valhalla_ , was not a veritable bustling city center. Instead it was like a spooky little rustic town, and a lot of the NPCs here were created with that kind of vibe in mind; there was an old hag who ran an apothecary, a fortune teller who spoke with a thick eastern European accent, and a wily old caretaker who’d been looking after an old estate since its occupants died under mysterious circumstances many years ago.

The extent to which the town’s aesthetic created an almost tangible aura of intrigue and mystique made me ponder on its choice as the location for the upcoming event.

I mean sure, the attention to detail in everything had been amazing thus far, but the design of this town, coupled with the way in which it created such a distinct atmosphere, made every other place we’d been to feel generic and bland by contrast.

As Serra led us to a tavern in town, I noticed that there seemed to be a distinct buzz amongst the players; the upcoming event was on everyone’s mind, and almost every conversation was related in some way to it.

As Serra tried to locate her contact, I paid attention to some snippets of conversation:

“Who do you think will be the first to get an invite?”

“Galvan and the ‘Black Hand’; no question about it,” answered a young man.

“Hah- you’re daft if you think that.”

“Why? There’s no other group that can match them in strength.”

“Match them in _numbers_ you mean.”

“They killed a lich-”

“Yeah? Well I heard there’s a two man team that killed one.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the lean, middle-aged man who had spoken the words.

“Bullshit. Two players couldn’t last a minute against one,” the young man countered.

“Yeah? Well maybe that’s all they needed.”

“Hah. Is he on about the ‘shadow stalkers’ again? That’s a fairy tale, Marth. Aren’t you a bit too old to believe in fairytales?” added a young girl, who took a seat next to the younger guy.

Serra shot me a cheeky grin, before whispering: “See? I told you they’d be talking about us in every tavern in this kingdom,” and I rolled my eyes at her, as she made her way over to her contact.

“Fairy tale? I heard they took out the Hagraven by Annwyn on their way here,” the man continued, and the two younger players laughed a bit, before a player from another table joined in on the conversation:

“The Hagraven is dead though. I checked it myself. And the trader from Annwyn said that only a couple of players had passed through that day.”

The girl quieted down as the boy spoke again:

“So what? Does that automatically mean that it’s the same two? I can buy two players taking down a Hagraven, but a Lich? Not without cheating.”

“It’s easy- Rogue/monk. If they’re skilled they could evade hits forever and just whittle away at it,” the old man added, with a self-righteous smile.

“Yeah- but one solid hit and one of them dies. Who’s taking that risk in a death game?”

“What do you think?”

I jumped as the question came quite suddenly from a girl standing right behind me.

“Uh- I dunno,” I responded uncertainly.

She wore a simple green robe, and her face was shrouded behind a hood, but as I glanced at her I got the suspicious feeling that there was something unsettlingly familiar about her that I couldn’t quite place.

Had I met her before?

“I’m thinking one of them has to be a tempest,” she muttered softly, and I studied her with renewed interest. “But the other- I dunno. Wizard or sorcerer could compliment tempest well, but that might be way too squishy for a two man team.”

“Hah- a tempest? In a two man team? That’s crazy. They’re useless in small groups,” the older man responded.

“They’re useless in general, Marth,” someone else added, and he chuckled before continuing:

“Maybe a wizard and a rogue? Illusion magic and stealth. That’d do it.”

As the older man spoke I looked over to the girl to see what she’d have to say, and I noticed she’d already slipped away, and was heading over to a table on the far side of the room.

“Well… I don’t know about the Lich,” continued another player, “but three players came in from Valhalla yesterday. Said two players poached a hill giant from them, then beat them to pulp a few times over.”

“Hey, I saw that giant’s corpse! It wrecked a starter village- that was the big one from _Kalm_ ,” added an older woman from the second table.

I was about to settle down at a table when suddenly someone came barging in to the Tavern in a huff.

“They’re here!” he called, out of breath. “Galvan and Auriel are here!”

Auriel?

That’s Kelly’s gamer tag.

I gulped anxiously, and Serra, who had been chatting with her contact, suddenly paused what she was doing and was studying me with a pretty worried expression.

“Finish up here,” I muttered to her softly, “I’ll go check it out.”

“Josh- wait,” she called, and as I looked back I could see her hesitating to say something.

“I’ll be right outside,” I reassured her. “Just come meet me when you’re done.”

She nodded blankly, but she still seemed strangely harried by the news and I wasn’t exactly sure why.

I went outside to see that there was a large group of players walking into Ravenloft, and a huge crowd was assembling just to see them walk in.

“What’s going on?” I asked a player to my left, and he chuckled a little.

“The Black Hand,” the man replied. “People are a little fanatical about them these days.”

The younger players I’d overheard in the tavern before were standing nearby.

“Is that Auriel?” the boy asked, “I heard she’s pretty hot.”

“It’s a game avatar, idiot. I could design myself to look like that if I wanted,” the girl responded.

“It’s not just her looks- she absolutely rocks with a bow,” he answered defensively, and the girl put her hands on her hips in annoyance.

“Whatever- not like if you have a shot. She and Galvan are pretty much a thing. I hear they’ve been sharing a tent since day one.”

I felt my heart beat two paces off track, and blinked a few times as my mind gave a little twirl making my head spin.

“Well- I can still admire from afar,” he retorted cheekily to the girl’s increased annoyance.

As the group neared us, I found my desire to see Kelly wavering.

I’d resolved to turn her down, hadn’t I?

I should be glad, right? She’s found someone that she can have a normal relationship with.

Wasn’t this what I wanted?

I took a wavering step towards the commotion, before pausing, and turning back, suddenly finding myself face to face with Serra.

“You’re not going to see her?” she asked, and I glanced away, feeling a strange sense of guilt; as if I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t have.

“It’s better this way,” I muttered softly, and she chuckled bitterly, before responding:

“Easier maybe… but better?”

I sighed.

“She has no future with me.”

“That’s something you two should decide together, Josh.”

I tried to walk past Serra but she stopped me.

“If I asked you to run away with me right now- would you?” she asked, her tone surprisingly somber.

“What?”

“Forget about Kelly, the event? We’ll hole up somewhere until this whole thing is settled, kill some easier stuff and just enjoy playing. Then when the game ends- maybe I could come find you, meet up in person? You’ve been nice to me so far… we could- go on a date or two, and see where it goes from there?”

I gasped, but as I studied Serra with absolute shock, I noticed that she looked more serious than I’d ever seen her look.

“Could you do that Josh? Could you forget about Kelly, and devote yourself to making me happy? Could you pretend you’re not lonely, when I hold your hand and smile? Could you make love to me and make me feel like I’m your whole world? Could you hold me every night when the nightmares come, and help me keep the loneliness at bay?”

I blinked at her uncertainly.

She was offering me every single thing that I’d missed since the day Tracey left, and I marveled at how easy it would be to just say yes right now.

But what would we be? Two broken people trying to fill the voids in our hearts with nothing but our desire to not be alone.

I finally understood- Serra was as broken as I was, but she was trying to find meaning in that emptiness while I was trying to throw myself into that void.

“No,” I muttered with a smile, and though she returned my smile genuinely I didn’t miss the subtle hint of sadness in her eyes.

“The Josh who I first met would have walked away- but the Josh who’s with me right now wouldn’t give her up without a fight.”

“You’re right,” I replied with a sigh, and as I spun around Serra offered me her hand, and together we made our way through the gathering crowd.

I scanned the faces about us anxiously, until we neared the center of the commotion; and there she was- the very image of perfection.

Her silvery hair was blowing in the wind, she had an arm linked with Galvan’s and wore radiant smile on her face as she waved at the crowd with the affectation of someone of royalty. Her fair skin seemed to shimmer in the afternoon sunlight, and the tribal tattoos on her face, and long her arms and legs seemed to almost glow with radiance.

I looked over to Serra and shot her a huge smile, before I broke out into a stupid laugh- because even though it was the splitting image of my sister’s character, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that it wasn’t Kelly.

“Uh, Josh- are you alright?” Serra asked, bewildered and concerned.

“That’s not her,” I asserted amusedly, and Serra studied me with a smile that was equal parts amusement and confusion as I laughed at myself.

“Are you sure? I mean it looks like her- even if she’s acting weird. So… she’s not here then?” she asked, and I shook my head at her as I took off.

“No. She’s here- and I’m stupid,” I called back to her with a grin as I rushed back to the tavern.

I entered and confirmed that the girl in the hooded robe was indeed still sitting at the table across the room, and I snuck down a corridor that led to some stock rooms before putting my impromptu plan into action.

“ _Minor illusion_ ,” I muttered, and I studied the image I brought to life.

I needed it to be perfect, so I cast the spell a few times, making small changes before I was satisfied.

I finished up my plan by using the _make corporeal_ spell to give it physical form, and had the image I’d created head over to a table and order a drink.

I wasn’t sure if it could really drink, but it didn’t take long for the girl to take notice of the image, and as she walked over to it I had the figure get up, and head quickly to the corridor where I hid, and to my delight she quickly gave chase.

The image I’d created was that of my own; not my character’s, but that of my actual real-life self, poorly disguised and dressed up in some typical fantasy rags.

As she rounded the corridor in pursuit, I had the image dash straight at me, vanishing just as we would have collided, and the girl paused; her mouth agape as she stood uncertainly a few feet away from me.

I walked up to her with a big grin on my face, and in one fluid motion, I lifted her chin up to my face and kissed her full on the lips.

She gasped, and I looked down at her affectionately as I added:

“Found you,” with a satisfied smile.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The siblings enjoy a reunion amidst brewing trouble.

***

“I-uh, you must have me confused with someone else-”

I cut off her protest by planting another kiss full on her lips, and I smiled as her breath was caught in her throat as we broke apart.

“Well now- do you have a habit of letting complete strangers past your privacy filters to kiss you like that?” I responded with a satisfied smirk.

“Um- it’s not like that. This has to be some kind of, um- glitch,” she was flustered, and fanning herself desperately as she tried to get the furious blush on her face under control.

“Glitch, huh- well then, let’s put that to the test.”

She shrieked as I suddenly pulled her with me into one of the rooms along the corridor, a stock room of some kind, pulling the door shut behind us.

“Hey- wait a second,” she began again, but I pulled her into my arms, leaning back against a wooden crate and paused just as our lips were about to meet again, to stare into deeply into her eyes.

They were a deep blue; unlike the silvery grey that her original character had been designed with, but as they fluttered embarrassedly under the conviction of my stare I knew with certainty that my precious little sister was indeed behind them.

“I’m going to kiss you- the way I should have every day of our lives since you were old enough to kiss,” I muttered with confidence, and she began to blush even more furiously, if that was even possible.

I closed my eyes as I pressed my lips onto hers.

It was a soft kiss; just brushing against her lips a little teasingly, but despite her reluctance she melted into me, so I pressed into her with more intent, mashing our lips together deeply and deliberately.

As I ended the kiss reluctantly, I could feel her warm breath against my lips as she exhaled with a deep, satisfied sigh.

“Just who do you think I am? Kissing me like that,” she whispered coyly, and I smiled as I played along.

“You remind me of a girl I love very dearly,” I replied, and she smiled a little, as I continued with a tone of mock thoughtfulness: “or maybe I just laid my eyes on you, and decided that you looked like fun to play with.”

“Oh? So I’m just being used, then? An elaborate plaything?”

I nodded.

“Yes- but I do so treat my playthings with care. You’ll see that shortly.”

I swapped our positions, suddenly lifting her up by the hips and placing her upon the crate that I had leaned upon, before sliding her up against me again, my hands now about her waists.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll scream? Call for help?” she asked playfully, and I shook my head.

“The only thing you’ll scream is for me not to stop,” I retorted, before pulling her in for another kiss.

This one was a bit rougher, and she put her hands to my chest trying to fend me off a bit, but I pressed into her, keeping a firm grasp on her body while my tongue probed her, seeking to explore beyond her lips.

Though she still made a show of putting up a resistance, it didn’t take long for her to relent; responding to the urgency in my kiss with her own tongue. They danced about a bit before I suddenly broke the kiss, biting her upper lip as I pulled away, and eliciting a little gasp.

As she licked the spot and tasted blood, a hungry smile appeared on her lips.

“Oh my- you’re no gentleman, are you?” she muttered, between ragged breaths.

“Even if I am- I have no intention of being gentle with you.”

I picked her up from her seat on the crate and brought her lips to mine as she wrapped her legs about me, but this time she kissed me with more ferocity than I’d initially expected, and my miscalculation allowed her to knock me off balance, sending me crashing to the floor.

*Thud!

I landed hard on my back.

“Bit off more than you could chew, perhaps?” she asked with a cheeky smirk, and I chuckled at her.

“Indeed- it appears the hunter has become the hunted,” but as she leaned in to me to claim my lips in triumph, I grasped her left hand, and pulled her into me before rolling her over, retaking the position of control and now trapping her hands above her head.

“Someone’s not playing fair,” she scolded me, and I shot her a wicked smile:

“Well I _am_ having my way with you- or did you not notice?”

I leaned in to taste her lips again, but as she leaned up to meet my kiss; I stopped short and shot her a wry smile, before quickly moving to kiss the soft place beneath her ear.

Her breathing was now tense, and she was moaning softly with each kiss that I planted along the sides of her neck, moving down to her shoulders and the exposed skin above her chest.

She ruffled my hair, squirming a bit under me as I continued to kiss her hungrily.

I grabbed her hand as I moved back up to her face, and I held them in place above her head.

“I can’t undress if you keep holding down my-” she started, but she her words cut short with a gasp as I tapped her robes with my finger and the piece of clothing disappeared in a ball of light, back into her inventory.

I wasn’t really sure it was possible, but I did know that Kelly would be naturally accepting to my advances, so I focused on the thought of dismissing an item to my inventory while tapping her robe and to my delight it worked.

I kept a firm grip on her hands, then turned her around, facing her away from me, and removing the wraps the concealed her breasts and her sex, before doing the same to my own clothing.

As I held her hands up, she looked over her shoulder at my now exposed cock with a trance like expression on her face.

I began to rub and massage her breasts as I pressed my body against hers, and she moaned a few times as my engorged cock slipped between her legs and brushed enticingly against her mound.

“Are you going to take me?” she asked, her eyes locked on mines, and I shot her a wicked smile:

“Do you want me to?” I asked, making a show of acting surprised, and she arched her back in anticipation as my rigid member brushed deliberately against her again.

“Not particularly,” she replied coyly, before shooting me a devilish smile.

I guided the head of my cock to her slit, and she gasped as I pushed against her, rubbing the length along her slit a few times, and allowing her dripping juices to lubricate the length.

I tweaked her nipple a few times with my right hand while my left held her hands together firmly at her back, and she gasped as every time my head pushed at her opening, I retreated and ran the length of my cock along her slit instead.

“It’s not nice to tease a girl like that,” she muttered, her voice thick and heavy with lust, and I grasped her hair roughly, pulling her head to me, before whispering into her ear with a wry smile:

“I didn’t hear you ask for it yet.”

She bit her lip defiantly, and I pressed into her opening just a little, before again withdrawing teasingly, and she let out a little impatient whine.

“Please-” she muttered, her eyes fluttering at me pleadingly. “Please fuck me,” she whispered.

“Hmm? But you’re just some stranger. I couldn’t possibly-” I responded with mock sarcasm, and she whined as this time I nestled the head of my penis inside of her slit before withdrawing wickedly to tease her again.

“Please- fuck me anyway,” she responded, the urgency apparent in her voice, and I smiled.

“Fine then- how do you want to be fucked? Like the woman I love- or like my plaything?” I asked confidently, and she smiled as she cocked her hips back to receive my thrust:

“Like your plaything,” she whispered, and I sank my length fully into her with an immediate thrust, my body slapping obscenely against her.

Her cunt walls were well lubricated from her heightened arousal, and I reveled in the feeling of her walls tightening around me as she tensed at the suddenness of my invasion.

“Mnh,” she moaned, and I tightened my hold on her hands and held her firmly around the torso, grasping her breasts as I thrusted into her again and again, with rough, deliberate thrusts.

“Oh yes,” she moaned, biting her lips to keep herself from outright screaming, and I continued for a bit, maintaining a steady pace, before pausing to readjust; I released her breasts, and pushed her body down towards the floor, before raising myself up on one leg to get some better leverage to thrust downwards into her pussy.

“Oh yes,” she cooed appreciatively as the angle allowed me to penetrate even deeper into her sacred place.

I thrusted into her slowly, withdrawing my full length a few times and allowing myself to fully delight in the feel of my cock being enveloped by the warm, wetness of her pussy, before I resumed pounding into her with renewed vigor.

She moaned loudly with each deliberate thrust, and as I suddenly quickened my pace again a louder scream came from her lips.

I reached down and placed my hand over her mouth, muffling her screams as I thrusted more deeply into her, and she grunted with exuberance each time I penetrated her to the hilt.

“Do you like being my plaything?” I asked?

“Mmh,” she moaned absently, and I withdrew from her; to her dismay, as I stood before pulling her up and turning her around.

I pressed her up against a nearby pillar, and she purred as I lifted up one of her legs and placed myself at her entrance again, but as she tried to pull me into her I resisted, keeping the head of my cock just teasingly inside the folds of her slit.

“Hmnn,” she whined, her gaze fixed upon my cock as it rubbed deliciously against her slit.

“Do you like being my plaything?” I whispered again, this time into her ear, and she nodded desperately.

“I fucking love it,” she whispered, “please make me cum like your slutty little toy.”

I brushed my cock against her one more time before sliding my length into her, and I took her hands once more and held them firmly above her head against the wall.

I lifted her up so that I could thrust into her more effectively, and as I found my rhythm I began to suckle at her breasts, placing sloppy kisses upon the firm nipples that poked out excitedly, and alternating between the two mounds.

As I found my rhythm, a more consistent stream of moans began pouring from her lips, and she wrapped her legs around me, pressing her feet into my butt and urging me deeper and deeper into her warm, wonderful, wet cunt with each thrust.

Her hips began to buck against me, her oncoming orgasm imminent, and as I released her hands and grasped her hips, supporting the weight of her body as I thrusted away inside of her with abandon, and she put a hand into her mouth and bit down a bit to muffle herself as a series of uncontrollable moans came steadily from her lips.

I was well over the edge myself, and as wave after wave of orgasmic pleasure coursed through her, her pussy muscles contracted wonderfully around my cock, massaging and coaxing me delightfully as I spewed rope after rope of thick cum deep into her wonderful virtual womb.

I held her firmly until she recovered from the intensity of her orgasm, before placing her down on one of the larger crates in the storage room.

I sat beside her as she lay back, panting a bit, before looking up at me with a starry eyed expression of affection.

“This girl you see in me- she must be special,” Kelly muttered between pants, and I smiled.

“She’s everything to me,” I admitted, while holding her gaze, before leaning in to place a light kiss on her brow.

“What about you?” I questioned, as I gently brushed my nose against hers. “Who were you chasing so desperately?”

She blushed at the unexpected question.

“No-one in particular,” she muttered shyly, before continuing: “maybe I just thought he was kind of good looking?” with a shrug.

“That guy? Really?” I asked teasingly.

“What? He’s not drop dead romance novel cover kind of gorgeous but… he was cute.”

“Pfft. I know his type,” I replied with derision. “He wouldn’t even know where to start with a woman like you. He’d probably waste all of his time chasing some other stupid girl without even noticing you were standing right there.”

She glared at me angrily.

“Well- maybe I want him anyway. And maybe I knew he’d be done playing with that stupid little girl sooner or later,” she responded defensively.

She put her hands around me, and looked up at me cutely.

“What if he doesn’t deserve a girl like you?” I asked more seriously now, and shot me a glum look.

“I don’t care what I deserve- I want what I want, and I want… you.”

She bit her lip nervously, blushing as she made the confession, and I smiled at her.

Now that I’d had the time to study her redesigned look, I noted that her character design suited her much better than the previous one had.

Her face was more rounded and less angular than the elvish like design she’d previously gone for, and her jet black hair was open and fell just beyond her shoulders, with those cute bangs that she always wore to the left side of her face.

I brushed the bangs from her face affectionately just as I’d always done whenever we were done horsing around.

“I missed you,” I muttered, and she kind of teared up.

“You’re not angry, are you?” she asked, and I shook my head.

“How can I be angry? You did what you thought was best for me.”

I brushed her nose against mine again before pulling her delicate lips in for a little kiss, and she smiled.

We were a bit lost in the moment when the sound of the door behind us pulling shut alerted us to the presence of an intruder on our intimate moment, and I joined Kelly in hurriedly dressing and donning my armor.

I planted a quick kiss on her head, my hand reaching back to hers, reluctant to let go as I headed for the door.

“Go,” she muttered softly, before adding with a reassuring smile: “I won’t run away this time, I promise.”

I smiled, then took off, and after leaving the Tavern I immediately spotted Serra hurriedly making for the edge of town.

I dashed after her, catching up to her just on the outskirts of Ravenloft.

I reached out and took her hand to stop her as soon as she was within reach:

“Where do you think you’re going,” I asked, and she wiped at her face defensively.

“To kill a vampire,” she muttered blankly, and I studied her.

“Without your partner?” I asked, and she pulled her hand from mine, looking away from me.

“You found her- now you two can be happy again. I get it okay? You don’t have to be polite.”

I placed my hand on Serra’s shoulder and spun her around to face me.

“Hey- I agreed to play with you, and that’s what I’m going to do. I’m happy that I found Kelly but that doesn’t mean I’m going to leave you just like that.”

She studied me dubiously, a melancholic look in her eyes.

“You mean that?”

“Yes- idiot,” I added with a smile, and she allowed me to pull her into a hug, but as I withdrew she suddenly pulled me back to her, and she kissed me full on the lips before my brain could even register what she was doing.

I stared at her questioningly as she glanced past me, and I followed her gaze to see Kelly studying us from a little way off with a look of concern on her face.

“Sorry, Josh,” Serra whispered into my ear, “- but I really hate losing.”

She shot me a wry smile before sauntering off ahead of me towards Kelly.

“So- You’re Kelly? Right?” Serra asked playfully, and Kelly fidgeted a bit, before Serra continued: “you don’t need to be shy- I know Mr. Sister-complex over here won’t put his dick inside anything that isn’t related to him,” and Kelly began to blush furiously, suddenly flustered as Serra smirked at her.

Serra walked up to Kelly, and studied her a bit before adding:

“See? I told you I’d bring him back to you in one piece,” and Kelly smiled nervously, and gave a little nod in response.

“Thank you,” she offered with a sincere bow, and Serra sighed, running her hand through her hair and giving her ponytails a little tweak.

“We’re taking a break,” she announced to me unexpectedly. “We’ll start back tomorrow; meet me at the tavern at the crack of dawn, and not a second later. Got it?” She asked threateningly, and I nodded in response.

She studied Kelly again before setting off, a bit uncertainly, back towards the town.

“Was that kiss a declaration of war, or-?”

“Nah, she was just being a sore loser,” I responded with a smile.

“She really fell for you, huh,” Kelly noted as I studied Serra’s retreating form, and I blushed a little.

“I didn’t try to make it happen,” I countered, and she merely shook her head.

“I knew it would happen,” she continued, wrapping her arms around me from behind. “What girl could resist my big brother when he’s at his charming best,” she muttered happily, and I blushed further at the compliment.

“You don’t need to worry about competing this time,” I muttered reassuringly, and she pinched my cheeks in response.

“Even if I had to compete I wouldn’t worry- little sisters always win.”

I smiled at her:

“Can you get time off for today too?”

She nodded:

“My group is scouting for leads on a master vampire. Unless they come up with something that quickly, I have a little time I think.”

She took my hand and we wandered about town for a bit, but as the evening quickly fell, Kelly decided that she wanted to cook us something to eat for dinner, so we headed out of town and found a quiet little place a little way from the Hamlet.

Using an old tree stump as a table, she set about preparing the meal, but as she did so I noticed that she’d not only acquired some new cooking apparatus, but that she’d also significantly expanded the range of dishes she could prepare as well.

“I hope these skills are transferrable to real life,” I muttered, and Kelly shot me a stern glare as she went about her preparations with a smug smile.

“There’s _nothing_ wrong with my cooking,” she asserted, and I chuckled as I remembered some of her less than savory culinary endeavors.

As she went about the task though, I studied her changed appearance with renewed interest. Although I figured she might do something like this to avoid me finding her again, that still didn’t explain the exact replica of her old image that I’d seen earlier with Galvan.

“Why is there a copy of you walking around with that old friend of yours?” I asked curiously, and she cringed a little at the question.

“Ugh. Don’t even ask,” she countered, but my questioning look didn’t go away, so she eventually relented with a sigh.

“I kind of joined up with Galvan’s team after I left you. I figured it’d be a safe place to be, and I’d be able to progress, and keep getting stronger.”

“Okay. So what happened?”

She sighed again.

“He’s a complete psychopath- that image he puts up, of being ‘oh so nice’ and helpful? It’s a farce. He has this obsessive need to be loved by everyone. The power he had as a leader of an elite squad went to his head, and quick. He started buying me abilities and gear, and the next thing I know there are rumors going around that we’re- ugh,” she shuddered a little as she recounted the tale.

 _I knew I hated that guy for some reason_ , I thought to myself, as Kelly continued on.

“So I confronted him about it, and he starts acting like if I’m confessing my feelings for him. I tried to get him to stop, and the idiot tried to kiss me- but my privacy filters kicked in and pushed him off. After that, all kinds of rumors started popping up about me that I’d really prefer not to share,” she added, and I nodded at this, before she continued, “So I refunded some of my skills, gave him back his gear, and changed my name and used my makeover kit to create a new appearance. The next day, that replica showed up by his side; same class, wearing the same stuff that I was, and using my name to boot.”

“Damn,” I muttered with a whistle, and she nodded appreciatively at me before continuing again:

“A few people knew, but- more people than I care to think about still think that she’s me. Around that time David and his group broke away from Galvan’s- because they too were worried about some of the less than wholesome approaches to adventuring that he’d been taking up- and they asked me if I wanted to join, so I did.”

“Oh. So that’s who you’re playing with now?” I asked, and she nodded.

“They don’t know who I am, though- but they’ve been nice to me. Your intuition about them was spot on,” she added with a smile, and she came over to me to give me a little squeeze before setting about making a fire.

“By the way- I switched classes,” she muttered, and I gave a little chuckle.

“Let me guess- sorcerer or wizard?” I asked, and she nodded:

“Sorcerer,” she replied, with a little pleased smile.

As we ate, she filled me in on some of her exploits with her adventuring group.

Apparently Karn and Pete had also joined up with them, and news had also come to the duo that Ren hadn’t died after disconnecting from the game- she was one of the apparently lucky few who survived the disconnection, but she was in a coma and had not yet woken up.

They seemed to have also been doing pretty well, taking out some notable monsters like a Manticore, a Mummy, and skeleton infested tomb.

Their current objective was locating a master vampire to hunt for an invitation to the upcoming event.

After we’d finished eating we lay down together in the grass, just enjoying the relatively peaceful ambience of the spooky old woods about _Ravenloft_ , and I recounted some of what Serra and I had been through.

But when I mentioned the synergy problem and Serra’s solution to it, her interest seemed to pique:

“Sleeping together, huh?” she asked teasingly, studying me closely as she spoke. “Are you sure I don’t have any competition?” but even as I shook my head in response, she still frowned.

“You could probably have a normal life with a girl like her,” she muttered, and I chuckled in response:

“Serra would drive me crazy- besides I have no idea what she even looks like.”

“I’ve seen her actually- she’s pretty. Cute, petite. A little chatty but still your type- you know, large?” she gestured at her boobs with a wink.

“T-that doesn’t matter as much as you seem to think,” I responded defensively, and she giggled.

“Oh please- I’m pretty sure that was all you saw in Tracey.”

Tracey had her faults, but I had to admit; her ‘assets’ were… considerable.

I sat up with a frown and she leapt at me, wrapping her hands about me and poking my cheeks as she cackled with glee.

She sighed, relaxing though still wrapped about me, before continuing:

“At least Serra wouldn’t hate me that much.”

I looked over my shoulder, and studied her a bit.

“Hmn. Seriously trying to get rid of me, are you? What happened to ‘wanting what you want’?” I asked with a wry smile, and she looked away with a timid little blush.

“I know what I want- but I want you to be happy too.”

“And you think I’d be happy with another girl? Tried that- didn’t work for me,” I countered, and she smiled.

“You better be careful, you know- if you make me want you, you’d better be prepared to deal with the consequences. There’ll be no stopping me once I start.”

“Really? Is this my last chance? Turn back before it’s too late kind of deal?” I asked playfully, and she nodded, still blushing, so I pulled her over my shoulder, and she giggled as she landed with a thud, sprawled out on the grass, looking up at me, half-smiling with her breath half-caught in her throat.

She swallowed nervously as I stared into her eyes, then briefly glanced at her lips before returning my gaze to them.

“I want you, Kelly Hegel,” I muttered, pausing to drink in the starry look in her eyes before leaning down to claim her lips with a kiss.

She took two quick breaths, before rolling over and getting onto her knees; then without warning, she pounced on me unexpectedly.

“Whoa-” I added, with a chuckle as she bowled me over.

She clutched at my robes, a huge smile on her face, and her eyes sparkling with excitement as she dove into me for a kiss, and she kissed me hungrily, passionately, unleashing the full extent of her long-held desire to possess me.

“Maybe we should set up a tent?” I offered, trying to break out of her frenzied assault, and she folded her hands as she looked up at me with a furious pout.

“Fine! You have two minutes before I jump you again,” she muttered wickedly, and I quickly got to work setting up the little enclosure.

She studied me with a teasing show of impatience as I set it up, and I was scarcely done when she leapt into me, knocking me into the tent, and attacking me with her lips once more before I could so much as close the entry flap.

 _Jesus Kelly_ , I thought to myself. _How much have you been holding back?_

“Take this off,” she muttered hungrily, and I removed my armor, allowing her access to my body.

She began to kiss me- not the soft, loving kisses that she had given me back then on the night that she left, but hungry sucking kisses that left a wet trail of red marks across my chest, and sent little jolts electricity up my spine.

I allowed her to ravish me to her heart’s content, before pulling her up to my lips, and kissing her as deeply as I could manage while I pressed her body into mine, trying my best to merge our two forms into one.

She slipped against me, rolling me around with her as we kissed.

“Tell me you want me, Josh,” she pleaded, slightly out of breath, as I moved my attention down to her neck and she pressed my face into her body, clutching me tightly.

“I want you- I’ve always wanted you,” I whispered with a pant, and she pulled away from my kisses to remove her vest, bringing a wonderful pair of breasts into view.

She pulled my face into her bosom and I devoured them fervently as she fished my stiff cock from the wraps around my waist.

She brought me to her entrance, and without hesitating she plunged me into the awaiting warmth of her already wet love tunnel.

“Mnh,” she moaned, wiggling a little against my cock, before she pressed herself into me and began to ride my length in smooth, but hard strokes.

There was an urgency in her desire, and I was intent on meeting it, so I held her body close to me with one hand while resting the other on the floor for support, and allowing her the freedom to impale herself on my length to her fancy.

She was moaning emphatically, drawing my hips to work with her as she ground herself against me with abandon, quickly bringing herself closer to an orgasm.

“Mnh- yes. Fuck me, Josh. Fuck your little sister. Cum inside me- and make me your own private fuck-toy.”

Her dirty words, combined with the way her pussy was squeezing my cock delightfully and massaging it each time she rolled her hips on top of me, quickly pushed me over the edge, and as I felt the cum welling up in my balls, preparing to spew into her womb, I leaned back a bit and began meeting her with upward thrusts of my own.

I tensed a bit, as I came inside of her hard, and with one final scream she bit down into my shoulder hard, and I could feel her body tense in my arms as her own orgasm rocked through her body.

I shuddered a bit as an incredible feeling of pain shot through my shoulder, and I felt the curious sensation of blood running down my back; but the discomfort quickly gave way to a euphoric kind of pleasure, and I placed my hand on her stomach as she continued moving against me, guiding her movements and prolonging her orgasm for as long as I could.

Kelly wriggled a little, and I slipped from within her as she collapsed on top of me with a deep, satisfied smile.

“Wow- that was. Incredible,” she muttered between heavy breaths.

I touched the spot where she’d bit into me gingerly, and Kelly let out a giggle as she inspected the damage.

She looked down at me timidly, a little trail of blood on her lips, and I couldn’t help but notice how sexy it made her look.

“You know… I watched you fuck Tracey once,” she admitted shyly.

“Oh?” I answered, as I lifted my hands to fondle the wonderful fleshy globes that were stood enticingly on her chest. Her nipples were firm, and I flicked them occasionally as I alternated my massage between the two.

“Yup- came home early from school one day; it was in final year I think? The back door was open and no cars in the drive- I had a feeling something was up, so I sneaked upstairs, and sure enough you two were going at it in your room.”

“Damn,” I responded, as I began to let my hands wander, trailing seductive little lines along her sides with my fingertips. “I used to leave the door open so I could hear if anyone came in.”

“Oh I know. I was extra quiet-” she added with a cheeky smirk. “I knew I was going to catch you that time. I crept up the stairs on my hands and knees, and I peeked over the stairs into your room- and there you were. You were on your back, and she was riding you- no skill, that girl; just bucking back and forth like she was on one of those kiddie rides,” she continued with a laugh, and I chuckled a bit as I realized how aptly the description fit.

“Did you play with yourself,” I asked with interest, my fingers now roaming across her hips, and creeping along to her inner thigh, and she continued:

“A little- I didn’t want to get caught before I saw you cum. You have no idea how much self-control it took to stop me from waltzing in there and tearing her off to take you myself. I’d ride your cock, just like I did just now- while fighting her off and everything,” she added with a wicked smile, and I let my hand wander to her slit, where my fingers slipped easily along the folds of her sopping wet lips.

“Did you ever think about me?” she asked, and I licked my lips as she watched me with bated interest.

“You remember that Halloween after you graduated? You made the _awful_ decision to dress up as a sexy cat-girl,” I recounted, as I moved her up a bit, to bring her breasts within reach of my mouth.

“Uh-huh- I’d just found out about your Japanese cat-girl fetish. Could you blame me?” she asked innocently, and I bit down into one of her breasts in response.

She giggled a bit, before continuing with a little smile:

“Go on- I wanna hear this.”

She was looking at me with desirous intent, and as my fingers explored the sensitive area around her pussy, I slipped a finger into her warm, wet opening as I continued:

“Tracey had just gone into the bathroom to get into her obligatory ‘slutty witch’ outfit when you came bouncing into my room with those cute cat-ears and that bushy little tail- I’m pretty sure that was the day when I noticed that my sister’s cute little butt was just downright fuckable.”

“Ooh. I remember that. Those shorts were so tight! I had to change out of them before I left the house,” she added with a wicked smile.

“You wicked little…”, I retorted, as I gave her a right smack on the butt for her effort, but the delightful smile on her face was unapologetic to say the least.

“I kind of lost it that time- went right into the bathroom to find Tracey. I’m pretty sure mom heard her screams when I fucked her silly. She sure didn’t complain when I was giving her the best orgasm she ever had in her life, but she went on and on about smelling like a ‘cum-dumpster’ all night.”

“Mmm-” she purred in response. “If I was walking around smelling of your cum all night, you’d have to tie me up to stop me from playing with myself.”

“Did you ever?” I asked, intrigued.

“What?”

“Smell my cum- play with yourself?” And she giggled teasingly in response.

“Does that turn you on?” she asked, and I nodded.

“Unfortunately- few opportunities. You have some kind of thing against cum rags. I used to leave my sexy used underwear all around the bathroom just hoping you’d use them.”

I smirked.

“I did use them- I just washed them immediately,” I retorted, and she groaned in frustration:

“Ugh- no wonder they kept disappearing and coming back clean. I always thought it was mom.”

She put a finger to her lips thoughtfully, a dirty smile appearing on her lips as she continued:

“There was this one time though, when we were at the beach up at the cape- you got off to fucking Tracey somewhere when I wasn’t looking… but you must have been in a hurry, because you came back looking all disheveled and smelling like sex. I smelt it on her- Tracey. I knew it was your cum- it was so musky, so pungent, so raw. It smelled nothing like a woman, and I was sniffing at her like a fool and she started getting all flustered.”

“Oh my god, I remember that,” I exclaimed. “She came over to me and whispered ‘your sister knows we had sex!’ She thought you would rat us out. If only she knew what you were really thinking,” I noted with amusement.

“You have a lot of fucking to make up for when we get out of here- for every time you ever fucked that bitch when it should have been me.”

I kissed her neck lovingly, as I continued to work my fingers inside of her, and she cooed into my ear in appreciation.

“Tell me that you love me,” she whispered, her voice thick and breathy.

“More than anything I possibly could.”

“Tell me that I’m the best little sister in the whole world?”

“You are the sexiest, most adorable fuckably cute little sister there ever was,” I muttered affectionately, and she nuzzled my neck with a broad smile.

“I think that’s how I want to sign my name off from now on,” she muttered playfully, grinding against me a little now.

“That’s going to make for some awkward family postcards,” I responded, and she giggled:

“That’s at least better than my name,” she murmured somewhat despondently, and I paused my exploration of her sex to study at her in disbelief.

“What’s wrong with your name?”

“You mean- apart from being the plainest, most boring name on the planet? What was that fancy version of my name you used to call me again?”

“Princess Calleigh the brave?” I muttered, and she nodded excitedly.

“That’s it! That was at least better than Kelly.”

“You’re nuts! Kelly is the best name in the world!”

“What? Why?”

“Oh, I dunno. Maybe because it’s your name?”

“You’re just saying that because you’re my brother and you have to,” she countered, but I shook my head.

“No I’m not. I really love your name. I could say it over and over from now until the end of time and never get bored.”

“Liar!” she teased, and I shook my head.

“Cross my heart!” I replied solemnly, as I held her gaze. “Sometimes- when things were pretty bad and I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore, I’d just sit to myself and say your name a few times. It never failed to make me smile.”

“No way,” she countered through a smile, her eyes sparkling brilliantly at me. “Say it then,” she offered the words like a challenge, and I blushed a little as she studied me.

“Kelly,” I muttered softly, and I felt my face redden a little as I said it, but she was studying me with wide eyed affection.

“Again.”

“Kelly.”

She shuddered a little this time, and I felt myself stirring against her.

“You’re casting some kind of spell, aren’t you?” she whispered conspiratorially, and I smiled, before rolling her onto her back and positioning myself top of her.

“Yup. Special kind of magic.”

“What does it do?”

“That depends on who casts it. If it’s just some random person, then it makes the target respond like, ‘oh, hi. Didn’t see you there’, or something,” and she giggled at me. “But if its cast by the right person, then it makes you lay everything down before them; your heart, your soul, your every dream, wish and desire.”

“And what if I try to resist it?”

“Kelly,” I muttered again, leaning into her and she closed her eyes as she shuddered a little.

“Stop that- you’re driving me crazy,” she replied, but as she pulled me down on top of her, I knew she wanted the exact opposite.

“Kelly,” I muttered again, and she spread her legs under me, and shuddered again as my semi-erect cock brushed against her.

“Oh Josh,” she whispered, wrapping her hands about me as she nuzzled my neck affectionately.

“Kelly,” I whispered the name now into her ear, and a long sensuous purr came from her lips I aligned my cock at the entrance of her slit.

“Oh my,” she whispered, her voice thick and husky with arousal, as I slowly sank my length into her.

Her lips parted around my rigid member, and I slipped almost effortlessly into her slick tunnel, aided by the combined with the fluids of our recently concluded copulation.

With a trance-like expression of bliss on her face, she closed her eyes as a seductive little purr slipped from her lips, and she whispered again: “Say my name, Josh.”

“Kelly,” I muttered, focusing everything on the utterance, allowing my body now move into her almost on autopilot, and she arched her back to allow me to reach more deeply into her, and I grunted a little as I drove my shaft into her wonderful warm embrace.

Our pace was picking up, and steady stream of moans were now emanating from Kelly’s lips.

I leaned down to kiss the delectable fleshy globes that swayed obscenely with the rhythmic, to and fro movements of our bodies, and she squirmed delightfully as I flicked her firm nipples back and forth with my tongue.

“Bite them, Josh- make me squirm, make me scream.”

I took one of the succulent round globes into my mouth and bit into the flesh as hard as I dared, and Kelly’s body tensed underneath me as she let out a shriek.

“Mnh, yes- Josh! Make me cum. Make me yours!”

I repositioned myself, and she wiggled her legs from under me and wrapped them about me, coaxing my length deeper and deeper inside of her each time our bodies met.

“Kelly,” I whispered her name into her ear, and she moaned emphatically in response. “Cum for me, I continued, “Cum for your big brother.”

The instruction instantly sent her cascading over the edge, and as I fucked her with abandon I was rewarded with a series of ecstatic screams, and she dug her nails into my back as a second orgasm ripped through her body.

As each orgasmic pulse washed over her, her insides contracted wonderfully around my rigid member, and as she continued to work herself against me, I shot my second load of cum deep inside of her with a grunt; continuing to moan as her muscles tightened and relaxed, working me delightfully, coaxing every drop of my seed out of my cock, and deep inside of her womb.

We collapsed together into an exhausted heap, panting heavily from the exertion but smiling like the satisfied, happy pair we were.

As I studied Kelly, still panting and recovering from her orgasmic high, she looked over at me and smiled.

Feeling blissfully satisfied _,_ I pulled her towards me, holding her close like the dear treasure that she was, and it didn’t take long before we both drifted off to sleep.

***

*Bzz!

The buzzing woke me up to the sight of Kelly’s naked avatar lying wrapped up in my arms, and as I shifted a little she groaned before coming to.

“Please tell me it’s not dawn,” she mumbled, as she stretched out with a long tired sigh.

“No- but I think I’m getting a call.”

She studied me glumly, and I opened up my character interface to see, ‘receiving call from dumb bitch,’ as expected.

“Tracey,” I muttered, and she groaned again, but as I dismissed the call her expression changed to one of guarded interest.

“Not answering?” she asked, and I shook my head.

“Sorry- I don’t feel like being yelled at right now for something I probably did three years ago,” I added with a tired sigh of my own, and Kelly crept up to me, rubbing her nose against mine.

“Good boy,” she added with a playful pat on the head, and I frowned a little at the pet-like gesture.

Kelly turned a little away from me as she stretched out again, and I moved behind her, wrapping my arms about her and pulling her into a spooning position.

“That felt a little too well rehearsed… is that how you and Serra worked on your synergy?” she asked teasingly, and as I blushed I was glad that my face was hidden behind her.

She sighed, and gave me a little frustrated elbow in the stomach nonetheless.

_And here I was thinking she didn’t get jealous._

“Come to think of it, you probably held Tracey like this too,” she muttered, as she took my hand and brought it up to her amply sized breast.

“Do you want a lie or the truth?” I asked, and she prodded me with her elbow again.

She gave a thoughtful ‘hm,’ before shuffling a bit, turning over to face me, and suddenly our faces were just inches apart, her breasts were mashing delightfully into my chest, and our legs almost automatically intertwined.

Our noses were just touching, and I stared into her eyes as I felt the little warm puffs of breath each time she exhaled.

“There!” she announced triumphantly, “this is much better, isn’t it?” and I nodded hypnotically as our faces drew in, almost automatically, for our lips to meet.

“I miss you,” I muttered softly, as we broke the gentle kiss, and she giggled at me:

“I’m right here, silly.”

“No- I mean the real you. You look like an angel when you sleep- you always have. That day when I woke up and you were there, sleeping by my side… it was like waking up from a nightmare to find myself in a heavenly dream.”

She blushed, before leaning in to kiss me again.

“What would you have done if I didn’t wake up?” she asked, and I smiled uncertainly.

“Probably nothing… just sit there and admire you,” I murmured, and she frowned a little.

“Not even a kiss?” she asked, and I shook my head:

“I was a good brother.”

“You still are.”

I kissed her again, then brushed her bangs out of her eyes, and she hummed contentedly in response.

“I’m not so sure about that,” I countered, as I stole a glance at her naked breasts with a wry smile. “I did think about kissing you though.”

“Really?”

“Yeah- as far as I knew I was dreaming… dreams don’t count, right?” I added with a wink, and she shoved me playfully in response. “You have beautiful lips,” I countered, and she licked hers as she hung on my every word.

“Can I tell you something?” she asked shyly, and I studied her intently, making her blush further.

“Go on,” I offered with intrigue.

“I kissed you that day,” she admitted, going ever redder than before.

“You naughty little-” my words trailed off as I grasped her, and rolled her about as she giggled gleefully.

She ended up on her back, breathing a little more tersely, but still looking up at me playfully as we came to rest, my hand at the side of her head, supporting my upper body just over hers.

“Can I tell you something else?” she asked, as she put a finger to her lips and she shot me a naughty, secretive smile: “That wasn’t the first time.”

“Uh-huh. And here I was thinking all these years my little sister was just the perfect little angel.”

“What? I am,” she responded with a showy innocent smile.

“Sure- let’s hear it then.”

“Hnn. Remember back when you were in high school and Tracey got into that whole drama/interpretive dance thing?”

“Ugh- why is every story related to her?”

“Oh, I dunno- maybe because you dated the bitch for seven years?” she quipped.

“Hm- fair enough,” I conceded, with mock indifference, and she turned her head away from me with a playful ‘hmph!’ “Go on,” I prodded her, and she smiled as she relented.

“Remember that big recital you all had?”

“How can I forget? Those people worked me like a _slave_ for days, and we didn’t even get so much as a thank you in the acknowledgements.”

“Kind of like the perfect metaphor for your entire relationship with Tracey if you ask me,” she responded with perk, and I flicked at her forehead in retaliation.

 _How apt it was that the club was called ‘drama,’_ I thought to myself.

“You were passed out in the car on the way home; then one sharp left and you kind of slumped over to my side. You didn’t wake up; it was dark, mom and dad couldn’t see us unless they looked back, and you looked so peaceful I kind of just held you, petting your hair comfortingly- but then I turned your face up to mine, and your lips just seemed to be calling out to me. I was entranced, and before I even knew what I was doing, I leaned in- and kissed you. In my head, it was going to be just a little sisterly peck- but when I pressed your lips to mine… something just felt so right. I was going crazy thinking you could wake up at any moment and start screaming your head off at me, but it felt so good- I just couldn’t stop myself. I have no idea how long the kiss lasted- but I could never get that feeling out of my head.”

She was blushing again, and I studied her with a mixture of amazement and affection.

She’d been holding back so much, and for so much longer than I’d ever imagined.

I didn’t think it was possible for me to hold her any higher in esteem, but she truly never ceased to stop amazing me.

I was leaning in to kiss her again when-

*Bzz!

I twitched a little, and she looked into my eyes.

“Call?” she asked, and I nodded, confirming that it was indeed Tracey who was again calling.

I ignored it once more, but a little anxiety began to gnaw at my chest, and Kelly quickly took notice.

“You know- that was the day we officially got together,” I muttered.

“Huh?”

“The dance recital.”

“Oh,” she responded, a little despondently.

I tried to keep up a smile, but the look on Kelly’s face told me that it wasn’t as effective a mask as I’d imagined.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, turning away from her and slumping onto my back.

“For what, exactly?” she asked, leaning over me now, a thoughtful look in her eye.

“I dunno- isn’t the last thing a girl wants to hear is a guy complaining about his ex?” I asked with a sigh, and to my surprise she smiled at me and tugged at my nose, before giving it a little wiggle.

“I’m not _just_ a girl, Josh- I’m your sister too. And I know better than anyone just how badly broken that girl left you. I’m not saying I want to hear you constantly talking about her, but I don’t expect you to magically heal overnight either,” she added, before leaning down to rest her head on my chest. “I’m just glad that you’ve started back talking to me again. Dying in a death game wasn’t the only way I could’ve lost you…”

As she lay there, stroking my chest comfortingly, my thoughts began to wander.

Kelly thought the world of me, didn’t she?

No matter how low I’d sunk, she’d stuck it through and stayed with me.

She believed in me when I could have scarcely believed in myself.

I wanted to be worthy of her.

I wanted to be the awesome big brother, the hero she saw me as.

I clenched my fists, and smiled a little, as the resolve took shape in my head:

_I’m going to kill a master vampire!_

***

//

***

Eric Dyer poured himself another cup of coffee.

As he looked over to the other man in the lounge, he saw what he imagined his own tired, sleep deprived eyes looked like.

It had been three solid weeks of absolute Hell since _Mythic Lands Online_ first launched, but their hell was probably nothing compared to what the players were going through.

He sighed.

As the only executive who didn’t bail as soon as it all fell apart, a lot had fallen into his lap and all at once too.

Gary Wright went into hiding.

Luka’s kids still couldn’t be found.

And Angela was basically spending night and day trying to contain the PR nightmare that had come with the disaster.

He took a sip of the piping hot, dark liquid, and allowed the warmth to spread through his chest.

With coffee in hand, he walked carefully out of the room and down the hall to the hotel conference room that was now operating as a makeshift headquarters.

 _How very apt it was for this impromptu meeting to take place in Geneva_ , he thought with a chuckle as he walked into a room where a world map stood on the far right wall, with little pins and pictures of every player still trapped in the game, stood, with their corresponding location.

With players hailing from every continent on the planet, the event was quickly being hailed as the first truly global technological disaster.

The death toll was already close to five hundred, but the more worrying part was the four thousand or so others who’d been disconnected from the game without waking up.

They were comatose by all appearances- but this was the strange thing; every single one who had been unplugged immediately died.

It was as if their minds were still stuck in that place, and their bodies died if they didn’t make it back intact.

It was being covered up of course; there was no way they could let people know that players were disconnecting and not recovering; the sheer panic was nigh uncontrollable as is.

This was where Angela’s brilliance in PR really shone; her decision to limit communication between the players and the outside world saved lives, and bought them some much needed time.

But panic could kill faster than even the game itself could.

He surveyed the mishmash of analysts in front of him with a sigh.

All attempts made by the company to resolve the issue internally had failed, and after less than a week they had no choice but to accept governmental intervention; but whose?

That was the funny part.

This was a company based in Switzerland, with assets on every continent on the planet; hell, they even had three satellites orbiting the earth, and one on Mars.

The Americans demanded precedence, but they were quickly contested by the Russians and Chinese.

Whose protocol was it to govern virtual space? All known laws depended on where the servers were located, but this incident was global in almost every sense of the word.

And… two weeks later, and where did it get them?

No one wanted to share intel; but no one was making significant progress alone.

All projections told them that it would take two months to reverse engineer all of the game’s protocols; and that was provided that they’d even found a way in at all.

That was where this conference came in.

It was a peacekeeping effort of sorts, and the type that quite frankly, they didn’t have time to waste on.

That was how it started out at least; until _he_ showed up.

Eric adjusted his glasses as he eyed the man uncertainly.

He wore a carefree smile that didn’t seem to ever fade, and his hair had been dyed a curious shade of green which seriously contrasted the complete business attire that he wore at all times.

He arrived, uninvited, to a secret meeting of some of the world’s most notable representatives with a simple proposal; the conspiracy group, known by their alias, CPY, wanted a chance to crack the most notoriously protected game of all time.

Eric had at his disposal some of the brightest young minds in cyber security, network analysis and computer engineering on the planet.

What were they, but a bunch of glorified modern day pirates?

Every year they cracked and distributed billions of dollars’ worth of software freely.

Eric had almost laughed at the prospect, but that was before the man presented them with a video of one of their testers logging into the network and getting to the loading screen and opening credits.

It was more than any of the arrogant government agencies assembled here had accomplished with two weeks of dedicated work, and they had done it while hacking their security systems to get unauthorized access to some of the game’s protected servers.

The video checked out, and the representatives gathered had to make a decision quick; keep working at it alone, or use a team that had made more progress than any them had with much less resources and time.

After a quick conference, the representatives gathered decided to give it a try, and to everyone’s shock, it took them just three days to reverse engineer the game’s introductory protocols, giving the alliance their first real glimpses into the protocols that had been initialized after the game’s launch.

And so the impromptu collaboration began.

It began with just the Americans and the Chinese, but Japan, Russia and the Eu quickly followed, and list of countries that were allocating resources and manpower to help was growing daily.

Survival mode; that was what the protocol was called.

There was so much hush behind it that they couldn’t even locate the coders who programmed it; it was Luka’s doing, there was no doubt about it now, but the hows and whys would haunt the world for some time to come. After all… his body was lying in a morgue as they spoke.

“We’ve gotten word on the kids; a young man called, as he burst through the conference doors in a huff. They’re in bad condition, but alive.”

Eric breathed a relieved sigh.

“Where are they?” he asked.

“At the medical facility in Stockholm.”

He picked up his phone and immediately placed a call to arrange a flight for one of their representatives.

Those kids had gotten into the game somehow.

But how, and why?

Their father, Luka, was already dead.

No-one had any clues, but if they could get in then the matter needed to be investigated and fast.

He was still midway through the call when a young woman suddenly shrieked, drawing his attention to her.

He walked over to the little laptop screen she was seated in front of, then gasped as he processed the information that was being displayed.

“Two hundred and forty? That- that can’t be right…” Eric muttered, the phone slipping from his hand, and landing on the floor with a *thud.

Two hundred and forty deaths in the last four hours.

It was more deaths than had occurred in any single period since the initial phase immediately after the game’s launch.

What the hell was going on?

***

//

***

After a reluctant farewell with Kelly, I met up with Serra and was immediately struck by the incredibly grumpy look on her face.

“H-hey. You look, uh-”

“Fuck off,” she muttered angrily before storming off, not even looking back to see if I’d followed.

She was quiet and brooding for half of the journey but her irritability eventually abated, to my relief, and she began going over our plans.

Our destination was an abandoned castle some half a day’s journey East of Ravenloft, and nestled into a nook in the great range that ran from the east to a long way south of the town.

As we studied the castle, I glanced at Serra.

“Think we’ll have company?” I asked, and she shook her head.

“Not a chance. This one is the furthest out, and no-one should know about it.”

“What if your contact sold you out?” I asked with a wry smile, and she turned haughtily on me.

“Mackenzie isn’t that type of scout. I’ve been paying her 50k per report since the game started. Her info is exclusive and always on the money.”

“Wow. That’s a lot for a scout.”

“Yup. But she’s worth it. She’s a rogue with zero combat skills but every movement, sneak and escape skill in the game. There isn’t any dungeon in existence that she can’t scout.”

We started scoping out the scene for ourselves but quickly ran into a stumbling block; every animal, insect or critter we could send in to scout for us quickly wound up dead, as the vampire’s lair was crawling with little critters of their own capable of snuffing them out.

We spent half the morning trying to get some useful info before resorting to my scan skill as a last resort; but even that failed as the lair was apparently protected by an anti-magic field designed to prevent scrying of any kind.

“So- do we go in blind?” I asked, and Serra sighed.

“I think you should sit this one out,” she responded, and I stared at her in disbelief.

“What?”

She fidgeted a bit, looking away as she spoke:

“I’m pretty good at staying alive, and thanks to Mackenzie’s info I have a pretty good idea of where the baddie might be hiding out. But if we don’t know what we’re up against then I don’t wanna risk-”

“Seriously? You’ve been building your skills around my support. You told me yourself that you stopped building your skills for solo play- and you’ve spent a lot on me that you would have spent on yourself. You’d be putting yourself at risk here. Why?”

“That’s not it- I’m just confident that-”

“Bullshit.”

I think in that moment I finally understood how Kelly felt when I’d changed things up on her at the start of the game.

“Come on- you’ve trained me, and we’ve been doing well so far. If you don’t trust me then maybe trust in your own ability as my teacher?”

I winked at her, and she relented with a sigh.

“Fine- lets go then,” she muttered reluctantly.

Mackenzie’s scouting info pointed out a few useful ways in, so we made it inside without much of a fuss.

Since vampires were natural creatures of the dark, we opted for Serra’s _silence_ spell over our now usual tactic of moving under the cover of _shade_.

“Be careful. This place is bound to be crawling with thralls,” she whispered.

As she activated the spell, she reached instinctively for my hand and I hesitated just a bit, and she looked away with a glum expression before leading me down a dilapidated hall.

As we moved, however, I caught sight of a rat that seemed to be paying special attention to us, and on instinct, I lunged forward and skewered it with my dagger.

Serra looked at me questioningly, then gasped when the dead rat suddenly burst into flames, and vaporized before us, leaving nothing but a little heap of ash.

I gulped as Serra and I exchanged nervous glances.

“I don’t like this,” Serra muttered. “They can see us, and we’re blind. I’m going to check for traps: _Detect traps_ ,” Serra muttered, and I put my hand over hers as she placed it against a nearby wall.

 _Detect traps_ was a useful spell, but it was limited to what was in the caster’s line of sight. But by using synergy and adding my magical necklace to the equation we had managed to increase the effectiveness of the spell by over tenfold.

“There- there’s a pit trap up ahead,” Serra muttered, and I nodded, but as we approached the spot Serra stopped me.

“Something’s not right. _Light,”_ she whispered, bringing a little ball of light into the palm of her hand, and I leaned forward to follow her gaze.

“Whoa,” I added, as I stared through some missing blocks in the floor to the floor beneath us.

“That’s not a pit,” Serra muttered, and I pondered the information.

“Anti-magic field?” I asked, and she shook her head.

“Anti-magic would have negated the spell, not given me a false positive. It’s an illusion; and a powerful one.”

I studied her, as she paused, deep in thought.

“What’re you thinking?” I asked.

“I could cast true sight,” she muttered, “but then I won’t have enough magic to use fire storm on the vampire… but if something’s leading us around with powerful enough illusions to manipulate my detection spells- then we might not even make it to him at all.”

She took a deep breath, before deciding: “Fuck it- I’m gonna cast it. You can enchant your rapier to hit him and I’ll just smite the bastard to death. _True sight_!”

Serra’s eyes instantly glowed white, but as soon as the spell activated Serra shrieked, and I quickly grasped her hand to activate synergy.

I followed her gaze downwards, and was met with a pair of deep red eyes staring directly back at me; but before I could so much as gasp, a faint, disembodied whisper came echoing down the corridor; “ _collapse_.”

The ground beneath us immediately began to give way and Serra, almost instinctively, reached out with her hands in an attempt to push me out of the way; but for once I was one step ahead of her.

As she reached out, I grasped her hand, and pulled myself into her body, wrapping myself firmly around her as we cascaded down with the collapsing floor into a seemingly never ending pit of darkness.

“Feather fall,” Serra whispered as I clung to her, and not a moment too soon as we hit into the floor with a *thud!

I rolled over with a groan, and Serra coughed as a cloud of dust raised up about us.

I studied Serra who had undoubtedly tried to push me out of the way of the collapsing floor.

“You know, for someone who’s always scolding me for doing dumb shit, you sure tried to do something stupid there.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Serra replied dismissively, pretending to be completely unaware of what I was referring to, but as I studied her she showed a faint little smile.

I was about to reach over to her, when a deep low growl came echoing down to us from above, and I looked up at the pile of rubble to our left to see a large hound like creature take form, staring at us with those familiar deep red eyes.

“What is that?” I muttered, as we backed away slowly from the beast.

“A blink dog, I think,” Serra muttered, “though I don’t know why one would be with a vampire. We’re in trouble here, Josh. It’s deadly and quick, and we’re sitting ducks.”

I considered the situation, then decided to channel my inner Serra and go for an unorthodox solution.

Pulling up my inventory, I retrieved one of the skewers that I’d previously prepared and tossed the meat laden stick into a corner near the beast, and it lunged at the offering, before devouring it ravenously.

“It likes it,” Serra observed, before adding: “throw another one.”

I retrieved another skewer and tossed the meat at the creature, and it quickly gobbled up the small offering.

“That’s the last of it,” I added nervously.

“Try casting _speak with animals,”_ she ordered, and I bit my lip in apprehension:

“I don’t think that’s supposed to work on monsters.”

“Just do it,” she commanded with a huff, and I rubbed my hands together, inhaling deeply.

“ _Speak with animals,”_ I muttered, and a while light appeared at my hands before flickering out.

**“Do you think you can speak to me like some common little pest?”**

The deep, terrifying voice spoke directly into my mind, and as Serra gasped I assumed she’d heard it as well.

“Sorry- I didn’t mean to offend you,” I muttered, but Serra was already readying her hammer.

 **“What are these tasty meats?”** the creature continued, keeping his glowing red eyes trained on Serra as he circled us menacingly.

As he walked, he sometimes faded from reality before reappearing.

“Wild meat- slow roasted over an open flame,” I responded, and he gave a little low growl in response.

**“If you want to live- then drop what you have, and leave before I finish eating.”**

“There’s no more-” I started, and he advanced on me before I continued: “but I can make as much as you can eat-”

“- _If_ you help us, that is,” Serra cut in emphatically.

He faded from existence, before reappearing a little distance away, and resumed his terse pacing about us.

Up close I could see that his fur was thick and silvery; much more like a wolf’s than like any dog I’d ever seen. But despite his monstrous size, standing just a head lower than my height on all fours, I noted that he didn’t at all look as hellish as I’d first imagined when I’d first stared into his crimson red eyes.

**“Ha. Help you, puny human? Maybe I’ll just make do with a meal of your corpses instead.”**

Serra took a step forward to stand by my side.

“We’re here to kill your master. You can help us in exchange for the meat, or die with him.”

The blink dog faded again, before a bitter laugh echoed in our heads.

**“My master? For centuries you foolish mortals have fallen before him. What makes you think you’ll be any different?”**

Serra slammed her hammer down, dangerously close, and the beast faded, before reappearing a little to her right with a snarl; but she didn’t even flinch.

“Because we’ve killed worse,” she replied confidently, and the blink dog faded away once more, before reappearing at a safer distance.

**“Prove that you can make those meats, mortal, and I’ll consider the request. But know this- I cannot directly intervene until that fiend is killed.”**

I glanced at Serra dubiously, trying to keep an eye on the hound.

“Do you have firewood?” she asked, and I nodded.

“Am I seriously cooking for this thing?” I asked dubiously, and she nudged me with a look that said ‘play along or else.’

I set up a fire and was thankful to see that I had some meats left over from my hunting extravaganza with Kelly in the first week of the game.

I settled for rack of ribs that had come off of a golden stag; one of the games’ rare wild game, seasoning it as Kelly had taught me, before roasting it on the spit.

The hound licked his lips hungrily as it roasted, and I quickly removed it from the flame before offering it to him reverently.

This seemed to please him, and as he ate it, he studied us with a thoughtful expression of guarded curiosity.

He finished up the offering, licking his lips contentedly, before letting down his guard just a bit.

 **“Very well humans- I’ll take you to him,”** he uttered, walking down the corridor.

“Do we trust him? He might be scripted to deceive us,” I offered, and Serra smiled.

“Never played anything without unscripted scenarios, have you?” she asked haughtily, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, as she continued: “Tabletop role-playing games?”

I shook my head:

“Never tried them,” I responded, and she smiled.

“Well- neither have I. But I did read up on them extensively when I heard that Gary Wright was designing this games’ mechanics with the ancestor of all modern RPGs in mind.”

“Which is?”

“Dungeons and Dragons, numb nuts.”

“Haven’t heard of a Dragon in this game yet,” I countered, and she chuckled.

“The mechanics is where the influence is strongest- immersion in most games is restricted by what the engine is capable of. To create something unlike any other game, Gary chose a system which was the most adaptable- and most like real life.”

“So you’re saying that this ‘blink dog’ isn’t just some scripted scenario…”

“Exactly- he’s doing what he wants right now. That’s not to say that he may not want to deceive us, but… what do you know about blink dogs?”

I rubbed my head then gave a little shrug.

“Nothing,” I conceded, and she continued on:

“They fall into the category of fey rather than fiend; they’re typically found in the company of great mages and saints.”

“So you’re thinking that he’s here against his will?”

“Yup. Depending on his backstory; he might have been corrupted, enslaved by the master vampire and forced to guard his lair.”

“I see- so maybe he really wants to see his master killed,” and she nodded in response.

We followed along for a bit, before we came to a wall, and as the hound circled the spot a bit, the wall shimmered out of view, revealing a hidden passage.

 **“This will take you to my master’s chamber,”** the dog added, as he faded in and out of view once more.

“How many thralls does your master command?” she asked.

“ **Twelve,”** he responded, before adding: “ **If you spur my master into summoning them, I will intercede, so he will not be able to call for them through telepathy. But there is a lever on the balcony of the chamber’s upper floor that allows him to release them; be wary if he goes for it.”**

The hound faded from existence once more, with a final echo: “ **Good luck.”**

“What’s the plan?” I asked, as Serra had me enchant both of our weapons with temporary magical properties.

“Keep him grounded and silenced,” she muttered in response, before taking a deep breath. “Josh- are you sure about this?” she asked? “This isn’t like the lich. We don’t know what it’ll be like till the fight starts, but running might not be an option once it does.”

I reached out and put my hand over hers before giving her a confident nod.

“I might suck, but I’ve got you. We can do it,” I spoke the words with confidence, and she sighed:

“One night with ‘little sis’ and you think you can do anything huh?”

I grinned a little, and she took a deep breath before activating her silence ritual.

We stepped into the dark space that the blink dog had opened in the wall ahead of us, and after walking through a little tunnel, we came to a trapdoor which opened into a great, eerie court.

The entire room was bathed in a soft red light that gave it a wicked look, and a number of huge, test tube shaped glass objects were suspended in the air about it, with a thick red liquid that looked like blood floating about inside of them like liquid in a vacuum, forming bubble like blobs that sometimes broke into smaller pieces, before floating about to rejoin larger ones.

I was still marveling at the scene around me when Serra hit me a sharp nudge, bringing to my attention the figure that was sitting in a throne that stood upon a dais at the far end of the room, where the lower floor was connected to an upper balcony via two circular staircases which spiraled away from the throne to the upper levels of the great court.

His eyes were fixed on us and he smiled for just a moment, before vanishing from sight:

“ _Collapse_ ,” came the echoey voice that we were familiar with, and I leapt off the ground, Serra’s hand in mine, just as the floor exploded beneath our feet.

“Josh, you need-!” She began, but I was already going:

“ _Illusion_!” I called in a panic, creating a platform connected to the ground at our feet, which I immediately gave physical form and not a second too late as Serra pushed off of it, leaping to the side as she shoved me hard.

As I fell backwards, a spark took shape where we’d only just stood, and I braced as it exploded into a fiery ball of flame.

I landed hard, and coughed a bit as my head spun.

Serra had pushed me out of the way of the brunt of the damage, but I still felt somewhat singed and hurt from the force of the explosion.

With my rapier in hand, I tried to mark the vampire, but in a blink, he vanished again, and I swore under my breath.

 _Shadow step;_ he could vanish and appear at will at any point that was shadowed.

“Light of Helios,” Serra shouted, the sigil around her neck raised high over her head, and a great bright of light immediately illuminated the chamber.

He appeared out of shadows near to the left of the hall and Serra and I charged at him from opposite ends.

He summoned a great shield which parried Serra’s first strike before easily evading my thrust, but I pressed the attack, forcing him to focus on evading my onslaught.

“Smite!” Serra cried, as her hammer came crashing down on him with a mighty blow which broke through his shield and made him totter backwards a few steps, and the vampire let out a great shriek, just as he transformed into a bat and began flying off towards the upper balcony.

I placed a hand on Serra’s shoulder to transfer the mark to her through _synergy_ , and she tried to fire her lightning shackles at the vampire in bat form- but he made a small target, nimbly dodging out of the way of her attacks.

“Shit! Josh-”

“On it,” I muttered, as I dashed across the room to get closer to him, before casting: “ _Elemental conversion: air to steam_!”

A ‘shh-ing’ sound echoed across the room as a big cloud of steam went up about the bat, and he beat his wings furiously, trying to keep flight as my spell thinned and lightened the air.

“Brilliant strike!” Serra called, and this time the spell struck, and the bat tottered a bit in midair before he went spiraling down.

He continued to beat his wings furiously, but in vain, as the moisture from the steam weighed down his wings, impeding his ability to fly.

He transformed back into his humanoid form as he neared the floor, then with a snap of his fingers a sphere of darkness took form about him.

 _I see you,_ I thought to myself with a smirk, and as Serra shot me a suggestive nod, she charged blindly into the midst of the void.

I took off on an interceptive course, and as I ran into her, we were in perfect sync; I grasped her by the back of her robes and spun on my heels, activating synergy as I swung her in an arc to build on her momentum.

“Catapult,” I chanted, as I released her.

The spell propelled her with immense force, and thanks to the improved aim that _mark_ afforded me she went flying directly to the master vampire, who quickly called up a protective shield just as Serra crashed into him with a mighty swing.

“Smite!” she yelled, and as her hammer broke the shield to pieces, and the very floor about him exploded into a shattered mess of wood and stone.

Her blow sent him flying across the room, crashing hard into one of the chamber’s pillars which all but shattered on impact.

He clambered shakily to his feet, bits of stone from the pillar he’d slammed into falling about him, and I took Serra’s hand as we charged directly at him.

As I activated synergy, I reaffirmed my grip on her hand, and she shot me a curious glance as we were poised to strike, but as our combined blows came down, a curious impulse took me, and I chanted “ _smite_ ” in unision with Serra.

Serra gasped in surprise as my rapier glowed white, and as it pierced the vampire’s chest, her hammer struck him in the ribs, and he let out a final bloodcurdling scream as his body began imploding, before bursting into a crimson flame which quickly consumed itself, leaving a scattered pile of ashen remains before us.

“Since when can you activate smite through me?” Serra asked, and I shrugged, shooting her a haughty smirk.

“Am I still your idiot noob apprentice?” I asked, and she grabbed me by the collar, and pulled me threateningly close to her face, before breaking into a grin.

“You’ll always be a noob, Joshie,” she countered, her hands softening about my robe as her grin simmered into a smile.

As the silence of our battle’s aftermath sunk in, I became all at once aware of how close our faces were, but as I moved to withdraw she held me.

“Josh- we make a good team,” she whispered, a hint of something in her voice that I couldn’t place and a strange glossy look in her eyes.

She began to lean into me, but as I lifted my hand to stop her, the blink dog suddenly materialized into the space beside us, his voice speaking into our heads:

**“I have to say- that was impressive. I never dreamed that fiend could be dispatched with such ease.”**

Serra jumped away from me, suddenly focused on straightening out her robes and I studied her with a wary smile.

As we set about gathering whatever valuables we could from the room, I noted that the hound’s attitude towards me seemed to have significantly improved.

While Serra carefully retrieved the prized invitation from the vampire’s remains, our new companion led me to a little room off of the main hall where the vampire had kept some of his most prized possessions; some pretty neat looking magical items, and other items of considerable value.

I returned to the hall, eager to share the find with Serra, when suddenly a deep growl came from the blink dog, and Serra pulled out her hammer, her gaze fixed on the balcony above us.

I followed her gaze as a curious figure emerged from the darkness; her form noticeably feminine despite her was face being obscured by the hood of her robe.

I gulped nervously as I noticed the lever in front of her; the one that the master vampire had tried to get to in our battle.

“What do you want?” Serra called, and the woman smiled.

“Your deaths,” she whispered wickedly as she flipped the lever, and as the blink dog vanished and appeared at her side with a lunge, she leapt from the balcony into the open space above us, and I blinked in disbelief as she suddenly vanished into thin air.

“Can you sense her?” Serra asked, as the blink dog reappeared at my side.

 **“No- she’s concealed herself with magic”** he responded, before sniffing the air thoughtfully. **“You have to run. The thralls have been released.”**

We quickly followed the hound as he led us away from the court to a path where we might best be able to make our escape.

 **“Stop,”** the hound interrupted, sniffing the air as we approached an intersection in the narrow corridor.

“Where are they coming from?” Serra asked, and he turned towards the corridor to our right, where the hallway led to stairway from a lower floor.

“Can we feather fall from the top of the castle?” I asked, and Serra shook her head.

“With the anti-magic field around the castle I don’t want to chance it, and even if we did get out, they’ll most likely follow us- and we’ll never outrun them.”

Serra took a look around before grabbing my hand and pulling me to the stairwell.

“Can you stall them?” Serra asked the blink dog, and he bowed as he responded:

 **“Yes,”** before fading away into nothingness.

“What are you thinking?” I asked, and she bit her lip nervously.

“I think it’s time for that new spell of yours,” she muttered softly, and I gulped.

***

My new spell; _astral imprisonment_ , was one which could trap the thralls in a dimensional barrier, but it would quickly consume my magic, making the imprisonment temporary. Serra’s plan was to trap them all in the stairwell, before using her daylight spell to slowly wither away their health, then finish them off with physical combat.

She was hurriedly preparing a ritual circle at the top of the staircase as I sliced my way through a pillar, and piled the stone across the entryway.

“Are you sure this will work?” I asked.

A loud crashing sound came echoing down to us from somewhere far off in the castle, and I hurriedly continued my work.

“No time to make sure. Those thralls might not be able to cast spells like their master, but they’re just as tough and hit even harder. Come on- we need to funnel them in from the lower levels.”

We went down one level, and I studied Serra as she struggled to push over a shelf to make a barricade across the corridor.

“Why aren’t you using your magic?”

“Ugh,” she grunted, as she struggled with the shelf. “Because I’ll need it,” she responded blankly, and I studied her with trepidation.

“For what? Your light spell doesn’t cost that much,” I countered, and she glared at me in response.

“I might need to fight, moron. Now less talking, more barricading.”

We worked our way down the stairwell, but as we finished blocking off the third floor, a howl came at us from above, and I looked up to see a vampire, a crazed look in his glowing red eyes as he stared at us with bloodthirsty intent.

“Shit- we need to knock him down,” Serra muttered, and we began to climb the wide spiral stairs in an attempt to meet him as high up as possible.

We met him somewhere around the sixth floor, and Serra took my hand and gave me a little nod.

“ _Smite_ ,” I chanted as I lunged forward, but my rapier didn’t glow this time and the beast grasped my blade in his hand, yanking me from Serra’s grasp and sending me hurtling into the far wall.

I looked to her to cast _shackles_ or something, but instead, she tried to spin out of the way of another slash, and she cried out in pain as the claws tore across her chest. But she didn’t hesitate for even a second before responding to the blow; raising her hammer and striking him in the chest, and following up the hit by leaping at him, and kicking out with her legs, knocking him over the balcony to the floor below.

“Elemental conversion,” I chanted, as the thrall transformed into a bat, and I watched as it spiraled down before returning to its humanoid form at the bottom of the stairs.

As I stared down over the balcony, the thrall let out another bloodcurdling cry, and two more thralls entered to meet him.

“Come on!” Serra yelled, as she pulled me hastily along.

As we hurried our way up to the top of the stairs, I glanced worriedly at the blood dripping from her front.

 _Why didn’t she use magic?_ I thought again to myself, but I had little time for rumination as the blink dog materialized beside us.

“ **They’re coming,”** it noted, and Serra gave a little nod.

“Ready?” she asked, and I nodded nervously as she continued: “Wait until the last one comes, and not a second earlier, okay?”

I gulped uncertainly, staring worriedly at the wound across her chest.

“Josh- look at me,” she added, as she lifted my gaze to her eyes. “I’ll be fine- I promise, but I need you to do this, okay?”

I nodded again, but as she took my hand and gave it a little reassuring squeeze, I suddenly noticed her gaze flicker indistinctly down to my lips, and without warning she suddenly lunged into me, kissing me hard.

Her eyes were tightly shut and her hands clutched at my chest, keeping me close, but only for a moment as she abruptly broke away from me, her eyes never meeting me again as she turned away and hastily made for the stairs.

“Come with me,” she called to our canine companion, and he followed without a word as she hastened to meet the thralls who were almost upon us now.

She swung her hammer at the first, crashing into the ground hard as he leapt easily out of the way, and as the second lunged after her the blink dog materialized at her side and deflected the blow.

She still isn’t using magic, I thought to myself, as I turned my attention away from her to check on the situation below.

Seven more thralls were on their way up the stairs, which meant that two more were left.

“ _Not until the last one comes,”_ Serra’s command echoed in my mind.

I glanced back to Serra; they were engaged with four thralls now, and as she parried a blow another leapt at her and Serra clenched her teeth as his fangs sank into her shoulder hard, and they came away dripping wickedly with blood.

I clenched my fists anxiously as another came in.

 _Should I cast it?_ I wondered, as all but one of the thralls were now in range of my spell.

Serra knocked another off of the balcony just as another one lunged at her, slashing her across her back.

 _“You can just kill the last one after- she’s going to die you moron, just cast it!”_ a voice spoke into my head, but as I got ready to cast, I suddenly realized that she had not cried out even once despite being wounded several times already.

She’d always given me instructions with very good reasoning, and they’d never once been off the mark.

 _“Trust her_ ,” I told myself, “ _she’ll be okay- just trust her!_ ” and I returned my watch to the stairs just as the twelfth thrall entered the chamber, to my relief.

“ _Astral imprisonment_ ,” I muttered, and as the cylindrical rift in space appeared beneath us, I concentrated on shaping it to the width of the spiral staircase, and stretching it out to encompass all of the floors below.

As the spell finally covered the space where Serra and the blink dog were engaged with the thralls, she activated her ritual circle, teleporting her instantly out of the radius of my spell and the blink dog shifted out of existence, joining her at my side.

“Activate synergy,” she commanded, putting her arms about me, and as I complied I shot her a questioning look.

 _This wasn’t in the plan_ , I thought, and as she stepped past me to the edge of the balcony, I noted the nervous little smile on her face.

“Firestorm,” she muttered softly, and I gasped as a white glow appeared about her just as column after column of flame began to erupt beneath us.

She created a fiery inferno of explosive flame, and it was magnificent; but as each column exploded Serra winced painfully, and I noted that her hands were clenched tight, and her body was shaking.

I could feel the magic draining from me as I held my imprisonment firm, containing her explosive magic and sealing the thralls into a fiery sepulcher of doom, and I sighed with the realization that she had not been entirely honest with me.

She knew I would not be able to contain them for long enough for her _daylight_ spell to kill them; using _firestorm_ had been her plan all along.

But I knew that she didn’t have enough magic to cast it; and as the explosions continued I studied her intently, trying to figure out just what the repercussions of casting it would be.

As the last thrall fell, burning away into a pile of ash, I ended my spell and ran to Serra, taking her into my arms just as she collapsed, panting, and barely conscious.

“Josh?”

“I’m here- just hold on, I’ve got some salves.”

“Josh- You know, I’m really glad… that I met you.”

“Shh- don’t talk.”

“But I need to tell you-”

“You’ll tell me when we’re back at the tavern in Ravenloft- over a mug of ale, and when we can smile and laugh about this. Just stay with me, okay?”

She gulped, and took a deep breath as I began to apply salves to her, but her breathing was labored, and each breath she drew seemed to pain her greatly.

“Hey- come on, just hang in there,” I whispered anxiously.

 _She’ll be alright_ , I told myself. _Stop freaking out._

This was Serra.

She was an amazing player.

She was invincible, wasn’t she? She couldn’t…

“J-josh, I-” she gulped again, struggling to even speak, and as her hands went limp at her side, I grasped at them in a panic.

“No- hey, stay with me,” I muttered, applying salves desperately to her wounds now.

 **“Josh-** **Her wounds aren’t fatal, but the spell compensated for her low magic by drawing on her life force. She won’t heal unless it’s replenished.”**

He seemed to speak the words only to me, as Serra showed no reaction.

 _“What do I do?”_ I thought to myself.

I had no healing spells, and there was no spell I was aware of that could regenerate magic.

I took her hand, and activated synergy, trying my best to transfer my energy to her.

“Please,” I muttered, as the spell connected us as always, but nothing seemed to be happening.

A little moan came from her lips, and her breathing was getting softer with each breath.

“Can you do something?” I cried out to the blink dog, and he lay down at her side with a helpless whinnying sound.

 **“I’m sorry,”** the words came in my head, and I felt the stinging sensation of tears forming in my eyes.

I placed my hands about her face:

“Serra, come on- stay with me, please,” I muttered pleadingly, but she didn’t respond, and I wrapped my arms about her, pulling her into my chest.

“Synergy,” I chanted again, trying to channel whatever I had into her, but even the connection between us was now beginning to fade.

I thought back to all of the time I’d spent with her; it had been less than two weeks, yet it might as well have been a lifetime, as she’d become so precious to me.

We’d been through so much- I had no real intention of playing before Kelly thrust me into her care, but now, because of her, I had learned not only how to play, but to enjoy playing as well.

Under the harshest circumstances, I’d gotten better at this game than I’d probably been at anything else I’d ever done.

She helped me to believe in myself after I’d spent years believing that I was worth less than nothing.

“Please,” I begged, desperately, as she went still in my hands, and I squeezed her tight, tears falling as I cast synergy again.

The spell flickered, and suddenly- something flashed through my mind: _“Since when can you activate smite through me?”_ Serra’s words echoed in my mind.

If I could activate smite like that, then just maybe, I could cast one of her heal spells, right?

I activated my synergy again, then chanted: “Heal!” then cursed loudly as nothing happened.

“Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck,” I muttered, before steadying myself to try again.

 _Think,_ I told myself. Every time I needed to achieve something through concentration, I’d conjured up various images of Kelly.

 _Maybe that might work?_ I thought, but as I tried to think about Kelly I just couldn’t get the image of Serra out of my mind.

Tears fell down my face.

“Please,” I muttered again.

I tried to clear my mind, and conjure up something to do with Kelly, but nothing seemed to shake the image of Serra, lying lifeless in my arms.

 _“Trust me,”_ her echo whispered, as my mind replayed the way she’d kissed me before the fight. It wasn’t the first time she’d kissed me; but this one wasn’t done to make Kelly jealous. The images appeared slowly; the vulnerable look she wore, the nervous way she bit her lips, the intensity with which she held on to me, and the incredible reluctance I felt from her as she broke away from my arms.

I held her, tears falling down my face.

“I can’t lose you,” I thought once more, holding her tight, and suddenly something occurred to me: Kelly was precious to me; so it was no surprise that I often used her image to achieve spells that required extraordinary motivation to activate, but hadn’t Serra become precious to me as well?

I didn’t love her as intimately as I did Kelly; but the feeling of pain in my heart as I held her, her life ebbing before me- wasn’t that also love?

As I held onto her tight, I realized that the scene in front of me was more motivation than I could possibly ask for, and as I poured the overwhelming affection that I felt for her into the embrace, a curious wave of energy began to course through me, and the blink dog beside us perked his ears up with sudden interest.

“Heal-” I muttered, and Serra twitched as a green glow seeped from my arms into her.

“Heal,” I muttered again, and this time she coughed, her eyelids fluttering a little.

“Heal,” I chanted once more, but as I held her tight, a teardrop rolling down my cheek and falling onto her face, a white glow began to form and soon it enveloped us both, and then I felt the curious sensation of magic flowing out of me and into her through my arms.

As the brightness of the glow became too much, I closed my eyes to escape the intensity.

“Josh- what’re you,” she mumbled tiredly, and I held her close, sobbing openly, as an overwhelming feeling of relief flooded through me.

“Thank god,” I cried, over and over again, and Serra blushed a little as I gushed over her.

She rubbed at her eyes gingerly, as tears fell from my eyes onto her, and I held her tightly again as I considered how close I’d just come to losing her.

“Jeez- you’d think I died or something,” she whispered, reaching up to ruffle my hair as I held her.

“What- do you think you’re my little sister or something?” I asked, wiping away the tears and she shot me a wry smile.

I was still wrapped up in the feeling of relief when a woman’s voice suddenly spoke from the corridor to our left:

“Well this is touching and all- but I’m gonna need that invite.”

“ _You_ \- you did this,” I muttered angrily, as the shadowy form of a robed figure emerged from the corridor, and a feeling of dread filled me as she approached.

That feeling; it was PK feedback, wasn’t it?

“Well- yeah, actually,” she quipped. “Nuh-uh,” she added, withdrawing a crossbow from her robes and aiming it at me as the blink dog stood up with a threatening growl. “Transfer the invite to me, or you both die.”

I clenched my teeth in anger, but Serra placed a hand weakly over mine:

“She’s a rogue Josh- she could kill us and escape easily if she wanted.”

I swallowed angrily, as Serra pulled up her inventory, materializing the letter in her hand.

I took it from her then walked warily over to the girl, who circled away a bit to keep her crossbow on Serra as I handed her the envelope.

“Much obliged,” she added perkily, giving a little curtsey before disappearing down the corridor and out of sight.

***

The blink dog led us to his master’s chambers, where I treated Serra’s wounds a bit, and prepared a meal for us, since food played as much of a role as rest in our character’s recovery.

Serra curled up beside me, resting her head on my lap, and I stroked her hair reassuringly as she slept.

The blink dog offered to keep watch for us, so I dozed off as well, but after a few hours Serra awoke with a stretch, feeling significantly rejuvenated, and we decided to head out.

“We got robbed,” Serra muttered with a sigh, and I nodded.

“How did she find us?” I asked, and Serra pondered the matter a bit.

“I’m not really sure. Maybe she could have tracked us from Ravenloft if she’s skilled enough- or it could have just been dumb luck. Either way, it looks like we’ll need to hunt a new vampire if we want an invite.”

As she walked ahead of me; I smiled as I noted the curious the perkiness in her step, which revealed nothing of the near death injury she’d just barely survived, and as our eyes met, she looked away with a playful smirk.

“You’d better be careful- if your sister sees you looking at me like that, she might start thinking she has some competition,” she called after me with a grin.

She continued on playfully, but as soon as we exited the castle’s grounds, Serra and I both flinched as a series of buzzes told us we’d gotten some messages.

“Damn- guess messages don’t go through anti-magic fields,” Serra noted, and as she checked her messages, I checked on mines as well.

“Received message from _Tsmafclstew?”_ I thought to myself. _What the_ \- then a serious blush appeared on my face as I remembered what that was; “the sexiest, most adorable fuckably cute little sister there ever was.”

Guess she wasn’t kidding about signing her name like that.

I pulled up the first message and began to read:

**Dear Josh, I hope you’re keeping safe. I just wanted to let you know that I miss you… I did every day that we spent apart, and it pained me not being able to let you know, so don’t be cross with me if I say it a few times, but- I really miss you. Anyway, I don’t want to get in the way of your adventuring; take care, and kick some vampire ass for me! :)**

**Love, Kelly.**

I was still reading over the message with a smile when a ‘Whoa,’ from Serra drew my attention back to her.

“It’s from Mackenzie- someone’s leaked the locations and layout of every vampire lair around Ravenloft.”

“What? How would they even get that info? Do you think that’s how that woman found us?” I asked.

“Could be,” she muttered, as she looked away worriedly.

“What is it?”

“Mackenzie said there’ve been attacks at every lair since, and that three groups have been wiped so far.”

She sighed deeply as she trudged ahead a bit, but I suddenly jerked to a halt.

“Wiped?”

“Yeah- more than twenty deaths combined. What?” she asked, looking back at me, and I stared at her in open mouthed shock, as Kelly’s second message stood open on my character interface;

**P.S. We scored some info on a vampire lair, and we’re headed there now. Looks like you won’t be the only one bringing home an invite tonight. :D Later!**


End file.
